Bethlehem, Dateline April 8th 2002 - 27 Nisan 5762
by Sara Bedein
(April 11, 2002)

The IDF entered Bethlehem on March 29th following massive missile, mortar and machine gun attacks upon the Jerusalem Gilo neighborhood that emanated from Bethlehem, Beit Jala, and the UNRA refugee camps in and around Bethlehem.

Instead of firing at the IDF from Palestinian military positions throughout Bethlehem, the PLO dispatched 150 trained sharpshooters to take cover and fire from the safe haven of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, [while] holding more than 100 Christian clerics hostage over the weekend. They have been using the world’s major Christian shrine as an armed refuge and firing sporadically at Israeli troops; the IDF issued explicit orders not to respond with fire on holy places.

IDF officials said that these men are armed with automatic weapons and that a number of them are highly wanted terrorists. Meanwhile, the PLO armed forces holed up in the church rejected the IDF’s offer to evacuate the wounded and to allow the armed men to turn themselves in, if their safety was assured.

Over the weekend the IDF evacuated five priests and three nuns from the Church of the Nativity. Security sources said that Franciscan and Catholic patriarchates claim that the armed Palestinians had treated them violently and had caused damage to the church.

The impasse continues, with the Catch-22 situation which prevents the IDF initiating any action to free the hostages and capture the terrorists because they are located within a Christian holy site.

Vatican officials presented a plan for solving the crisis: The Palestinians would lay down their arms and leave the church premises, while Israel would lift its siege on the site. However, the Palestinians rejected the offer.

Meanwhile, the Vatican Ambassador to Israel, Msgr. Pietro Sambi, vehemently denied the rumor spread by the PA and reported on in Palestinian media, according to which the IDF had supposedly murdered a priest in Bethlehem.

A Case in Point
The military successes of the operation have been largely ignored by Western media - notably, Kaes Adwan, the most senior of the wanted Hamas operatives was killed on Friday April 5th:
In the course of the fighting, the forces noticed a suspicious car parked at the entrance to the house where the wanted men were hiding. The force fired at the car and it exploded. It was discovered that this was a car bomb which had already been prepared for detonation. The IDF believes that Adwan planned to sneak the car into Israel in order to perpetrate a massive terror attack.

"The killing of Adwan is a tough blow to Hamas," said a senior figure in the IDF.
Dr. Abed al-Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas leader in Arafat’s cabinet, expressed his sorrow at the killing of Adwan. He promised that the response would be "tough and extremely painful." However, Rantisi said that the assassination would not harm Hamas activity. "Kaes Adwan is no more then one percent of the people at his level who operate in the Izzadin Kassam troops,” he said. He added that Hamas’s revenge would be “a serious operation against Israel that would undermine the stability of the Zionist state."

Kaes Adwan was responsible for the murder of 77 Israeli. Palestinian sources agreed that his killing is a harsh blow to the military branch of Hamas..” Adwan, 25, was a senior figure in Izzadin Kassam, Hamas’s military branch. with Hamas.
Adwan was wanted in Israel over the past few years for his involvement in many terror attacks. He was responsible for:

• The terror attack at Mei-Ami, in which the terrorist Zayid Kilani detonated a bomb he was carrying, killing an Israeli civilian.
• The terror attack at Sbarro’s in Jerusalem in August, 2001. Adwan recruited and dispatched the terrorist who blew himself up, killing 15 Israelis and injuring dozens more.
• The terror attack at the Nahariya train station in September, 2001. Adwan recruited and dispatched the suicide bomber, Shaker Hibeishi, an Israeli Arab from Abu Snan, who murdered three Israelis and injured dozens.
• The terror attack on the bus in Haifa in December 2001, in which 16 Israelis were killed and dozens injured.
• Dispatching a suicide bomber to perpetrate a terror attack in Jerusalem, which did not succeed because the GSS captured the terrorist. The terrorist, Rassan Abu Smada, said during his interrogation that he had been recruited and sent by Adwan.
• The terror attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya in which 26 Israelis were killed and more than 100 injured. The terror attack at the Matza restaurant in Haifa. Adwan located and sent the suicide bomber who killed 16 Israelis.

On a Tangential Note:

Two companies of reservists serving in Bethlehem were forced to sleep in an apartment adjacent to the Church of the Nativity. The soldiers entered the home, sent the entire family into one of the rooms, and when they received instructions to leave the place early in the morning, they collected a kitty of NIS 1,500 and gave it to the family.
"We went into their home, used their rooms, and therefore they deserve to be paid," explained one soldier. When the soldiers gave the money to the family, they expressed their regret to the family and added, "This is a time of war."

Other reservists in the Nablus sector sent hot meals to families, giving up their own lunches. Avi, a reservist, said, "We encountered an entire Palestinian family, elderly people with their children and grandchildren. They were frightened and thought we were going to kill them. When we received a hot meal, we gave it to them. They were shocked." Last night, those same soldiers returned to the home and discovered that a member of this family suffers from an ingrown toe-nail and must undergo surgery. They called in the doctor, Dr. Eyal Dekel, who carried out the procedure, ending the pain.