Associated Foreign Press
August 28, 2001

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AFP) - The Israeli army invaded the Aida refugee camp in the West Bank Tuesday morning, widening its incursion into the autonomous zone of Bethlehem-Beit Jala, witnesses said.

A member of the armed wing of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction and a member of his Force 17 bodyguard were injured during an exchange of fire with the soldiers occupying part of the camp, the witnesses said.

A Palestinian policeman died of his wounds early in the day after being shot by Israeli troops who had occupied positions in Beit Jala, hospital sources said.

Two more Palestinians, one of them a journalist, were lightly wounded, the sources said.

At the same time Israeli forces made an incursion, with tanks and bulldozers, into the Gaza Strip, destroying houses and leaving four Palestinians injured there, witnesses said.

The dead man was identified as Mohammad Samur, 23. He died about an hour after being hit in the chest during clashes.

His death brings to 773 the number of people killed since the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, erupted last September, including 619 Palestinians and 154 Israelis.

Beit Jala is on the outskirts of the West Bank town of Bethlehem, and the Israeli army claimed it moved in, shortly after midnight, following gunfire there.

"Our forces have occupied dominant positions in Beit Jala and will maintain a presence there to prevent further firing," an army spokesman said in a statement.

"Our forces will operate for a limited time to achieve their objectives," the statement said. The army's aim was to "protect innocent civilians and foreign residents as well as the holy sites," in Bethlehem, the statement alleged.

Bethlehem is the birthplace of Jesus Christ and has a sizeable Christian population among its Palestinian residents.

An Israeli army spokeswoman later claimed that, "as soon as the Palestinians stop firing at us, we will leave" Beit Jala.

There had been sporadic but heavy gunfire as dawn approached, said an AFP correspondent at the scene, who reported having heard at least 10 tanks shells explode over the previous two and a half hours.

About 500 meters (yards) from the Israeli positions, five Palestinians ran past, disappearing into side streets and gardens heading in the direction of those positions.

At another moment, a Palestinian resistance activists, armed with a bazooka, ran out of the Bethlehem hospital forecourt and about 50 meters (yards) down the road, firing the weapon, before returning to the hospital.

By 7:00 am (0400 GMT), shooting was less frequent, and only small-arms fire could be heard.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops and tanks also forced their way into an autonomous Palestinian area in the Gaza Strip overnight after a day of bloodshed and a warning of the prospect of "all-out war."

Beit Jala stands opposite the key Jewish settlement of Gilo, illegal under international law and whose inhabitants considered the most radical of Jewish extremists. One Israeli settler from Gilo was slightly injured by Palestinian fire earlier Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened two weeks ago to storm Beit Jala if Gilo was shot at again, following heavy fighting in the area.

The exchanges of fire and incursions around Bethlehem came just hours after Israel assassinated a Palestinian leader Monday in a daring attack that Yasser Arafat's government said marked the end of peace hopes and the beginning of "all-out war."

The murder of Abu Ali Mustafa, the 63-year-old head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was quickly followed by the killing of an armed Jewish settler in a revenge attack.

Israeli parachutists, protected by three tanks and armored cars first penetrated the village of Rahmeh, in Bethlehem's autonomous eastern sector, after breaking through Palestinian barriers, witnesses said.

Israeli helicopters circled the area while in the Palestinian refugee camps in the area activists used loudhailers to call for armed resistances against the Israeli forces.

However, the Israeli forces did not appear to meet any stiff resistance from only lightly armed Palestinians, with the tanks opening fire at civilians several times.

The operation was approved by a majority of Israeli ministers during a telephone conference, with dovish foreign minister Shimon Peres one of the few to oppose the action, public radio reported.

Meanwhile, in the southern Gaza Strip four Israeli bulldozers, accompanied by tanks, advanced 100 meters (yards) into the Rafah zone, destroying at least three Palestinian houses, the sources said.

This second incursion left four Palestinians injured, including a woman who was seriously hurt by a tank shell, they said.