wfn.org | Jesus' birthplace at center of new round of Mideast violence

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Note #6917 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

23-October-2001
01401

Jesus' birthplace at center of new round of Mideast violence

Palestinian youth killed in Manger Square after leaving mass

by Elaine Ruth Fletcher
Religion News Service

JERUSALEM - A Palestinian youth was killed in Bethlehem's Manger Square
while the historic Church of the Nativity nearby was slightly damaged by
gunfire from Israeli positions over the weekend, as Bethlehem became a
central arena of Israeli-Palestinian confrontation.

	Palestinian Christians and Muslims trapped in Bethlehem-area homes and
church compounds during Israel's military incursion into major West Bank
cities have been unable to flee the fighting, which has already resulted in
more than a dozen deaths and many more injuries in the area of Jesus' birth.

	Saturday (Oct. 20) morning an 18-year-old Christian youth reportedly was
shot to death by Israeli gunfire shortly after leaving a Mass at Bethlehem's
St. Catherine's Church, the Roman Catholic church that stands on Manager
Square adjacent to the Byzantine-era Church of the Nativity.

	"We were standing on Nativity Square and he was shot right in front of me,"
said he Rev. Ibrahim Faltas, the Catholic priest responsible for St.
Catherine's Church and for Catholic rituals inside Nativity Church, which is
used by Catholic and Orthodox Christian denominations.

	On Sunday morning Israeli bullets hit the roof of Byzantine-era Nativity
church, burning small holes in the wooden beams, Faltas added. Two windows
in St. Catherine's Church also were broken by the gunfire.

	Against the backdrop of ongoing violence, Jerusalem's Catholic Patriarch,
the Rev. Michel Sabbah, issued his strongest appeal ever for Israelis to
withdraw from the West Bank and end Israel's three decades of West Bank
occupation.

	"To the Israeli people we say, you merit also security and peace," said
Sabbah in a letter published Sunday. "The key of death or peace is in your
hands and in that of the government you have elected. It depends on your
government to put an end to all occupation that has been pressing upon the
Palestinians during decades. .. Restitute the occupied land to the real
owners."

	Meanwhile, Jerusalem's leading Catholic and Orthodox church leaders said
they intended to march in a convoy from Jerusalem toward Bethlehem on
Tuesday morning, in a demonstration of solidarity with Bethlehem
Palestinians, and as part of an appeal on Israel to withdraw from the area.

	While Israeli tanks have reached positions within a few hundred meters of
the historic Nativity Square, the main focus of recent fighting has in fact
been refugee camps on the fringe of the city, as well as the predominantly
Christian suburbs of Beit Jallah and Bethlehem. Those two suburbs lie
adjacent to Jewish residential areas and Israeli military positions and have
frequently been caught up in cross-fire between Palestinian snipers and
Israeli soldiers.

	Beit Jallah's Evangelical Lutheran Church pastor, the Rev. Jadallah
Shehadeh said he had been forced to flee his parsonage because of Israeli
shelling in the area, and take refuge in the walled church compound, which
also houses a boys school.

	The church and school compound found itself on the front line of fire
between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militias after it was occupied by
Israeli soldiers during a brief Israeli incursion into Beit Jallah in
mid-September.

	But the current Israeli military operation has penetrated even deeper into
Beit Jallah and the surrounding area, noted Shahadeh. In the present
circumstances, the walled school compound at least offers relatively more
protection against the gunfire and shelling now pervasive throughout the
area.

	"There are a lot of tanks in Beit Jallah," said Shahadeh, in a phone
interview on Monday, as ambulance sirens wailed in the background. "Many of
the houses around us have been occupied by Israeli soldiers and the soldiers
are shooting from all over the place.  Our church has also been hit by three
mortar shells. But at least the walls here are thicker and higher. I am now
living with my family in the boys' school. Together with the children here
and the educators we are about 60 people.

	"We have been under siege for about four days. We have a lot of
difficulties obtaining food and water but I try to go out and get provisions
when things seem to quiet down a little. Still it is a risk if you move
outside at all."

	Jadallah said that some Beit Jallah residents had fled in advance of the
fighting to the United States or Latin America. But those living in the city
now are trapped by the Israeli security belt around Palestinian urban areas,
and are thus unable to even take refuge in the countryside.

	For many Palestinian residents today, the memories of millennium-era
renovations and celebrations in the city now seem like a distant dream.
Garbage, broken glass and shells litter main streets that were paved and
cleaned especially for Pope John Paul II's triumphal visit to the region in
March, 2000.

	"Bethlehem is depressing, there is no memory of what took place a few
months ago," said Najwa Raheb, wife of the Rev. Mitri Raheb, pastor of
Bethlehem's Lutheran church, which stands only a few hundred meters from
Manger Square.

	"The streets have been damaged, buildings have caught on fire. Israeli
tanks have come up the main road, Paul VI, getting as close as a few hundred
meters to Manger Square - although the streets are too narrow for them to
get all of the way through.

	"Bethlehem is not the same," she added. "You can feel that there is a war
going on."
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