Shooting erupted near the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem and Israeli tanks ploughed into the West Bank's biggest city yesterday as Israel vowed to pursue its offensive.
Three explosions and heavy machinegun fire echoed around Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, on the site where Christ was said to have been born, but Israel denied it was trying to storm the church to winkle out some 200 Palestinians holed up inside.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Israeli armor thrust toward the heart of Nablus, the biggest West Bank city, meeting heavy resistance, and tanks shelled a nearby refugee camp, witnesses said. Troops also fought running battles in the northern city of Jenin.
The Israeli offensive, launched last Friday after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 26 Israelis, has enraged Arabs and provoked deep concern around the world that Middle East violence may be sliding out of control. Israel's closest ally, the US, has apparently been reluctant to intervene.
Two top EU envoys arrived in Israel on an urgent mission to press for a ceasefire.
But Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon slamned the door to their meeting Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, besieged at his West Bank headquarters since Friday, and said Israel's military drive to uproot "terror" would continue.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique were due to meet Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer as well as international peace mediators later yesterday, diplomats said.
"The decision is that [Arafat] will stay in the place where he is and he will be isolated," Sharon told reporters after a late-night meeting of his security Cabinet.
Sharon said peace talks with Palestinians would resume only "when there will be a full cessation of terror, hostilities and incitement."
He also accused Syria and Iran of being responsible for recent cross-border attacks by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and threatened to take "all actions" required to prevent them.
Syrian troops took up new positions in eastern Lebanon yesterday in what diplomats saw as an attempt to lessen direct confrontation with Israel, which last year hit Syrian troops twice in Lebanon in retaliation for Hezbollah attacks.
"We saw that Syria is giving support and backing to what is going on," Sharon said during a visit to the Northern Command headquarters, a day after a soldier was seriously wounded in a Hezbollah attack on an Israeli border position.
Sharon was due to meet US Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni later in the day and Israeli political sources said the Israeli leader might give Zinni the go-ahead to meet Arafat.
Palestinian officials said the EU envoys, despatched after an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers, must be granted access to Arafat, or no other Palestinians would meet them.
Palestinians say Sharon's offensive aims to oust or kill Arafat, destroy his Palestinian Authority, scrap interim peace deals signed since 1993 and block their hopes of independence. Israel says it will not harm the Palestinian leader.
At the UN, Arab nations vowed late on Wednesday to push to a Security Council vote a draft resolution demanding the withdrawal of Israeli forces from West Bank towns.
The measure appeared to be unacceptable to Israel's main ally, the US. US envoys, who earlier threatened a veto, said only that Washington was now studying it. The council agreed to delay a vote until later yesterday for more consultations.
In the Bethlehem clash, Palestinian officials quoted men inside the Church of the Nativity, one of Christianity's holiest sites, as saying Israeli forces had blown the back door off, but the army denied the report.
A correspondent about 500m from the church heard gunfire and loud explosions, but could not say what caused the blasts or where the firing was aimed.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said: "Israeli soldiers did not fire any weapons or cause any explosions or storm the church."
Bethlehem resembled a ghost town, where fearful residents peeked from their windows at Israeli tanks and armored vehicles lurking in streets littered with debris and mangled cars.
Peter Qumri, director of a hospital in the nearby town of Beit Jala, said Samir Salman, 45, had been shot dead as he crossed Manger Square on his way to the Church of the Nativity yesterday.
Qumri said ambulance workers had retrieved seven bodies since troops stormed into Bethlehem on Tuesday, adding that he believed at least five more cor-pses remained to be collected.
AIR DEFENSE: The Norwegian missile system has proved highly effective in Ukraine in its war against Russia, and the US has recommended it for Taiwan, an expert said The Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) Taiwan ordered from the US would be installed in strategically important positions in Taipei and New Taipei City to guard the region, the Ministry of National Defense said in statement yesterday. The air defense system would be deployed in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) and New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), the ministry said, adding that the systems could be delivered as soon as the end of this year. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has previously said that three NASAMS would be sold to Taiwan. The weapons are part of the 17th US arms sale to
INSURRECTION: The NSB said it found evidence the CCP was seeking snipers in Taiwan to target members of the military and foreign organizations in the event of an invasion The number of Chinese spies prosecuted in Taiwan has grown threefold over a four-year period, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report released yesterday. In 2021 and 2022, 16 and 10 spies were prosecuted respectively, but that number grew to 64 last year, it said, adding that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was working with gangs in Taiwan to develop a network of armed spies. Spies in Taiwan have on behalf of the CCP used a variety of channels and methods to infiltrate all sectors of the country, and recruited Taiwanese to cooperate in developing organizations and obtaining sensitive information
BREAKTHROUGH: The US is making chips on par in yield and quality with Taiwan, despite people saying that it could not happen, the official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has begun producing advanced 4-nanometer (nm) chips for US customers in Arizona, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, a milestone in the semiconductor efforts of the administration of US President Joe Biden. In November last year, the commerce department finalized a US$6.6 billion grant to TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona. “For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading edge 4-nanometer chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo said, adding that production had begun in recent
Seven hundred and sixty-four foreigners were arrested last year for acting as money mules for criminals, with many entering Taiwan on a tourist visa for all-expenses-paid trips, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said on Saturday. Although from Jan. 1 to Dec. 26 last year, 26,478 people were arrested for working as money mules, the bureau said it was particularly concerned about those entering the country as tourists or migrant workers who help criminals and scammers pick up or transfer illegally obtained money. In a report, officials divided the money mules into two groups, the first of which are foreigners, mainly from Malaysia