January 30, 2004

Israeli Military Vehicles Enter Bethlehem

[Bethlehem, West Bank] It was tough for me to sleep last night, so at 2:30 am I finally gave up. I climbed to my roof to see if anything was happening in Bethlehem. There I heard the terrible buzz of the unmanned drone plane flying overhead. It passed back and forth, over and over. It was impossible to see in the darkness, but unfortunately not impossible to hear. An hour after that, the drone was joined by military helicopters making the same passes. The helicopters were loud enough to scare the cats out of the garbage bins, especially when a few bursts of shots were fired. The shooting got the dogs and donkeys involved too. The old bells at Nativity Church rang briefly at 4:00 am, and there was a short message from a local mosque at 4:05. In the distance I saw two military vehicles entering Bethlehem from the east. They slowly drove near my community, but I couldn't tell exactly what they were doing. They had a spotlight on some of the buildings as they drove by. At 5:00, three more Israeli military vehicles -- two jeeps and a truck -- passed my apartment several times. Another jeep started up the road, but then turned off its lights and waited in the street for a while. And at 5:30 the bells rang at Nativity Church again. The night brought back a lot of old (but not good) memories of life in Bethlehem. At least the streets around here were free of tanks. I thought that we would be under curfew, so I went to bed for a couple of hours. But now it's morning and the soldiers are gone.

The Associate Press said that about 20 Israeli military vehicles entered Bethlehem in an operation that appeared limited to arresting suspects and possibly destroying the house where the bomber lived -- in the Aida refugee camp. Israeli forces instructed Palestinian security officers to abandon checkpoints outside Bethlehem, and troops moved into the town, residents said. Israeli military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, would say only an operation was in progress.

Haaretz reported that Israel Defense Forces troops entered Bethlehem on Friday for the first time in six months in a sweep for militants after a Palestinian policeman from the West Bank city killed 10 people in a suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus. Palestinian witnesses said armored vehicles rumbled into Bethlehem before daybreak and troops fanned out to search houses, including one where the policeman - a member of the militant Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - was thought to have lived. IDF troops were preparing Friday morning to demolish the terrorist's house, which his family has evacuated, Israel Radio said. Witnesses said soldiers detained 12 Palestinians. About 15 armored vehicles took part in the operation.