Bethlehem Christmas Pull-Out Unlikely
An Israeli official said Friday it was unlikely Israeli troops would pull out of Bethlehem before Christmas, as requested by Pope John Paul II in a meeting Thursday with Israel's president in Rome. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said Israel was inclined to bar Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from Christmas observances in Bethlehem for a second straight year.
In fact, Israeli troops could remain in West Bank towns for quite some time, according to the army's weekly magazine. Plans outlined in Bamachane magazine show reserves replacing the troops for periodic training, which indicates a stay of at least a year.
Hamas marked the 15th anniversary of its founding Friday with threats to keep attacking Israel, delivered at a rally led by dozens of armed men and would-be suicide bombers in white robes.
Gathered at a stadium, at least 30,000 supporters chanted "God is great" to cheer Hamas founder, Ahmed Nimer Hamdan, who said fighters of the Islamic militant group "will not lay down their weapons and will not stop firing their bullets until the end of this battle."
A senior Hamas activist, Abed al-Yusef Abu-Moussa, was shot dead Friday morning by Israeli troops in a village south of the West Bank town of Bethlehem.
The army said that Abu-Moussa, who died during an exchange of fire with troops as he tried to flee a house in the village, had planned to send a suicide bomber to Israel in the coming days.
One Palestinian was killed and another was wounded Friday in a blast in the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian security sources said the blast was caused by a "work accident" - what the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz calls a euphemism for bomb-making.
In the West Bank town of Hebron, Israeli troops bulldozed three Palestinian homes after a sniper killed two Israeli soldiers, including the first woman slain in combat in the past two years of fighting.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's hawkish Likud party is expected to win 39 of parliament's 120 seats in Jan. 28 elections, almost doubling its current size, according to a poll published Friday in the Maariv daily.
Twenty-nine political parties are competing for seats. One advocates men's rights and another seeks the legalization of marijuana.
The poll indicates that Labor will lose two seats of its current 26, an improvement from earlier surveys that indicated the party would go down by six mandates. The ultra-Orthodox Shas party is expected to sustain the biggest loss, dropping from 17 to six seats.
A similar poll in the Yediot Ahronot daily gave Likud 35 seats, Labor 22 and Shas eight.
Shinui, an advocate of secular rights, was expected to win nine seats, up from six, according to the Maariv poll.
At the Hamas rally, marching music played as 60 members of the group's military wing walked onto a stage. Several were armed with assault rifles, hand grenades, mortar launchers and anti-tank rockets. They were followed by 15 men in white robes, symbolizing the death shrouds of suicide bombers.
Hamas has held talks with Arafat's Fatah movement on halting attacks in Israel, so far without result. Arafat aides say the Islamic militants have signaled willingness to observe a truce in exchange for greater political representation.
A Palestinian splinter group, the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack on soldiers in Hebron.
The soldiers were ambushed along Worshippers Way, a path connecting the large Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba with a fortress-like shrine in Hebron believed to be built above the biblical Abraham's burial cave, holy to Jews and Muslims. Last month, gunmen killed 12 soldiers and guards in the same area.
One of the soldiers, Cpl. Keren Yakobi, 19, was the first woman killed in battle since women were put back into combat units five years ago. Other women soldiers have been killed in suicide bombings.
In his meeting with the pope, Israeli President Moshe Katsav said troops could withdraw from Bethlehem before Christmas if there were no warnings about terror attacks. But the government official said Friday terror warnings have increased. He said Israel would ease curfews and try to allow access to Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, but would have to remain in charge of security.
"The last thing we want is a suicide attack on Christmas Eve," the official said.
The official also said Israel was inclined to ban Arafat from observances, as it did last year.
Arafat, a Muslim, had attended Bethlehem celebrations starting in 1995, when Israeli troops withdrew from the town under interim peace accords. Since last December, Israel has confined Arafat to his West Bank headquarters in the town of Ramallah.