BETHLEHEM, April 3: Dead and wounded Palestinians lay where they fell in Bethlehem on Wednesday, the second day of the Israeli army’s reoccupation of the traditional birthplace of Jesus Christ, rescue workers said.

Fighting between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers in central areas near Manger Square prevented ambulances from picking up corpses and wounded Palestinians. Some of the wounded have managed to take refuge in churches and mosques.

In the house of the Abda family, the corpse of Samiya Abda lay next to that of her adult son, Khalid. Their faces appeared to have been partially blown off.

“The woman and her son until now are still in their house, where the other children are living,” said Mohammed Samhan, a Palestinian Red Crescent official in Bethlehem.

“They were shot yesterday (Tuesday) morning with a tank shell by the Israelis who have prevented us from retrieving their bodies,” he said. “There are many wounded as well, in churches and all over the city.”

Residents said some Palestinians were being treated for bullet wounds on the spot.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said she was checking specific claims about the ability of Palestinian ambulances to move in Bethlehem, but added that in general the army had “no interest” in obstructing the work of medical teams.

“We are trying to move them. We are waiting for the green light,” Veronica Sommaro of the International Committee of the Red Cross said of Bethlehem casualties.

Israeli tanks rolled into the town on Tuesday, broadening a military campaign in the West Bank which Israel says is to halt a wave of suicide bombings which have killed dozens of Israelis.

Palestinians sheltered in their homes, pulling shutters tight across doorways and peeking cautiously from their windows, fearful of what they said were Israeli snipers on rooftops.

In the south of the city, just below the hill where the Church of the Nativity is located, the stutter of machinegun fire sent children scurrying back into their homes, shouting “gunfire” as they fled.

Their mothers had ventured out to a shop beneath their home to buy provisions.

“It’s madness,” said 70-year-old Rasmia Mohammad. “We hear fighting all through the night. We have no water to make bread, and the bakeries are closed. We are eating beans and soup.”

Residents spoke of hundreds of Palestinian police and security men holed up in churches around central Manger Square, once a major attraction for tourists and Christian pilgrims visiting the place where they believe Jesus Christ was born.

“I have hidden myself and my children,” said Ahmed Hassan, contacted by telephone, who identified himself as a member of the Palestinian tourism police, who are not armed.

“Where is help from the Arab world, and from our Muslim brothers?” he said, his voice cracking with emotion before he cut the line.

Local television stations reported the killing of Palestinian guerillas in Bethlehem, but gave no figures for the numbers of dead among fighters and civilians.

Wary Israeli soldiers took up positions next to tanks and armoured vehicles tucked into the winding alleys and narrow roads of the old city centre.

Residents said troops had stormed the municipality building, detaining journalists inside. They also fired in the general direction of a group of journalists walking through the town, but no one was hit.

Roads were like obstacle courses, littered with the debris of battle. Buildings were scorched from fierce firefights. Facades of shops and apartments were shattered and ragged, shards of glass clinging uneasily to window frames.

A Franciscan monk inside the Church of the Nativity said the church did not have enough supplies to care for some 200 Palestinian militants taking refuge there.

“We cannot care for 200 people. We have a convent for 30 to 40 people and our supplies can last us for two weeks,” German monk Johannes Simon told Reuters in Berlin by telephone.

“The Israeli defence minister has assured the apostolic nuncio that the basilica will not be attacked. I hope that will stay the situation,” he said.

In nearby Beit Jala, a convoy of Israeli army vehicles and a police vehicle roared uphill past a hospital, where Palestinian medics stood in the emergency entrance, unable to venture out.

A curfew imposed on the town was lifted for a few hours on Wednesday to allow residents to hunt for food.

“Do you have any bread today?” a young Palestinian woman shouted breathlessly to workers in a bakery as she hurried past.

“Only yesterday’s loaves,” was the reply.

“Look! That grocery is open!” said the woman’s friend, pulling her up the road.—Reuters