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Friday | Safar 12, 1423 |
Israelis kill seven Palestinians: Nine men allowed to leave church
AL KHALIl, April 25: Israel’s forces shot dead seven Palestinians near occupied Al Quds on Thursday as its tanks staged a brief incursion into the southern West Bank town of Al Khalil.
Al Khalil and Jericho are the only Palestinian cities not to have been occupied in Israel’s Operation Defensive Walls launched on March 29.
But Israeli troops and tanks launched a four-hour incursion into Al Khalil on Wednesday night to conduct searches and make arrests, residents said.
Israeli soldiers traded fire with Palestinians as 20 tanks and armored personnel carriers entered the town’s northwestern sector.
A Palestinian man was shot dead during the incursion, hospital sources said. They identified him as Ahmad Bashir, 25, a member of Force 17.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s spokesman said an undercover Israeli unit shot dead one Palestinian policeman and wounded another in a car near Al Khalil after they had opened fire on Israeli soldiers.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces said they had killed four Palestinians. They said all were members of a Palestinian security service.
Nine Leave church: Nine Palestinian youths and two corpses were brought out of Bethlehem’s besieged Church of the Nativity and fresh talks were expected to resolve a three-week-old standoff at the shrine.
Israeli forces have ringed the church since April 2, trying to snatch Palestinians who burst into the shrine to seek sanctuary after Israeli soldiers raided Bethlehem as part of a sweep for guerillas across the West Bank.
It was the first large-scale release of people from the church, where 230 people including priests, monks, nuns and civilians have been trapped along with dozens of fighters suspected by Israel of involvement in suicide bombings and shooting attacks.
“Israel succeeded in evacuating nine youths who had been held hostage in the Church of the Nativity. Two dead bodies were also evacuated,” said army spokesman Captain Jacob Dallal.
“The fact the youths spent so long in such dismal conditions underscores our assertion that so many innocent civilians are being held in the church,” he said. Palestinians have denied anyone has been held hostage in the church.
The army spokesman said the nine youths were each given a medical checkup and food and would be allowed to go home shortly.
It was not immediately clear what led to Thursday’s releases. Israel had said the guerillas in the church had agreed to release 10 to 15 Palestinian youngsters on Thursday.
Talks on Wednesday were marred by a gunbattle in which two Palestinians were killed and an Israeli soldier seriously hurt.
SMOKE BOMBS: Reporters standing near Manger Square saw two coffins being taken out of the church and a group of young men leave the shrine on Thursday before smoke bombs fired by soldiers blocked visibility.
“There are eight or nine people who are leaving with the bodies,” Palestinian Tourism Minister Mitri Abu Eitah said.
The removal of the bodies of two Muslims killed in fighting two weeks ago eased concerns of Christian clerics that the church, one of Christianity’s holiest sites, could become a focus of religious tension if Muslim “martyrs” were buried there.
Israel wants Palestinians holed up in the church to surrender and choose between standing trial in Israel or exile. Palestini