Looking For Survivors
Palestinians in the shattered Jenin refugee camp clawed through rubble in search of missing people on Thursday, hours after Israeli troops withdrew.
Israel said troops would leave the West Bank cities of Nablus, Jenin and parts of Ramallah by Sunday but would stay at Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's compound and Bethlehem's Nativity Church until a standoff with militants was resolved.
"We will not be able to leave the area of Bethlehem and the Mukata (Arafat's Ramallah compound) where there are terrorists being hidden until the terrorists are handed over to us," Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Israel Radio.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher flew by helicopter to meet Arafat, becoming the fourth foreign dignitary to visit his besieged headquarters since Israel launched its offensive on March 29 after suicide attacks that killed scores of Israelis.
Tanks and troops left Jenin camp overnight, but snipers stayed on the outskirts, witnesses said. The Israeli army would not comment on its operations in and around the northern city.
"We found five people, who were taken to Jenin hospital in very bad state," resident Naim Awais said from the camp. "There were two boys, a woman and two men."
The pullback from Jenin camp followed a Middle East mission by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell that failed to produce a cease-fire or the immediate Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian cities that President George W. Bush first demanded on April 4.
Israelis and Palestinians were pessimistic.
"I regret that the mission did not end in a more promising way," Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Israel Radio. "The situation is at its most tense."
Arafat warned that his continued confinement by Israeli troops would hurt Mideast stability, and demanded the United States help end his confinement.
Arafat has been confined to Ramallah since December, and to a few rooms of his shell-shattered headquarters since Israel began its West Bank offensive March 29, with the goal of crushing Palestinian militias behind deadly attacks on Israelis.
"Powell's mission is too little, too late, and most of all, too weak," wrote Israeli commentator Hemi Shalev in the Maariv daily. "President Bush sent Powell on his Mideast trip with a mighty horn blast that suddenly became a weak moan."
Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser said a round of negotiations on the church standoff, initially scheduled for Thursday, was canceled by Israel.
More than 200 armed men, including 30 militiamen and dozens of Palestinian policemen, have been holed up inside one of Christianity's holiest shrines since April 2. Israel insists the armed men surrender, with the option of trial or exile. The Palestinians have rejected the proposal.
Nasser appealed to Pope John Paul II to come to Bethlehem and help resolve the crisis. The pope visited Bethlehem during his millennium year Holy Land pilgrimage.
On Wednesday, a Palestinian who left the church was shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers. The military said two suspected militants left the church, approached soldiers and ignored orders to halt. The soldiers opened fire, wounding one. He was taken to a hospital for treatment. The other returned to the church, the military said. Also, a priest who has taken ill was moved to a hospital, the military said.
Nasser said the church, which marks the traditional birthplace of Jesus, "concerns Christians all over the world and believers all over the world, as well." He said Israel must not be allowed to keep troops in the town.
In the Jenin refugee camp, Palestinians began burying the dead from a weeklong battle, the deadliest in the 3-week-old offensive. Medics and residents were seen carrying human remains, one man emerging from ruins holding two feet. A boy held a child's blackened foot inside rolled up jeans.
Palestinians brought two bulldozers into the camp to clear away debris, and residents searched for more bodies. Palestinians have buried at least 28 of the Jenin dead, most of them in a yard outside the hospital, but the death toll isn't known.