Troops reoccupy Bethlehem

ISRAELI troops reoccupied Bethlehem yesterday after 11 bus passengers, including four youngsters, were killed in a Jerusalem suicide bombing.

With troops back in Bethlehem, Israel was again in control of all Palestinian population centres in the West Bank except for Jericho mirroring the massive deployment that capped military offensives in April and June.

However, Israel's range of responses is limited; it is under pressure from the United States to keep a lid on Mideast violence while Washington concentrates on its campaign against Iraq. In responding to Thursday's bus bombing, the Israeli military was expected to stick to tried methods, such as hunting militants and demolishing homes of terror suspects.

Expelling Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, an option previously raised by hard-liners in the Israeli Cabinet, was not discussed by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz in consultations on Thursday. Sharon yesterday said Israel would show no mercy to militants. "Anyone who harms Israel, a little or a lot, will have his hand chopped off," Sharon said, using a biblical phrase.

Also yesterday, Israeli troops exchanged fire with Palestinian gunmen in the Jenin refugee camp during an army raid of the hideout of a local leader of the militant Islamic Jihad group.

A UN official from Britain and an 11-year-old Palestinian boy were killed in separate incidents in the camp, doctors and UN officials said. An Irish national was wounded by army fire in the camp, a Palestinian monitoring group said. In the Gaza Strip, two Palestinian assailants and an Israeli soldier were killed yesterday. One Palestinian tried to infiltrate into a Jewish settlement and the second from the Islamic militant group Hamas had attacked an army patrol.

Israeli troops also razed five homes or parts of homes of Palestinian terror suspects two in Gaza, two in the West Bank city of Nablus and one in Bethlehem.

Israeli police said the Jerusalem bus bombing was carried out jointly by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. Both groups claimed responsibility, but neither called it a joint attack.

The bomber, 22-year-old Nael Abu Hilail from Bethlehem, blew up 11 pounds of explosives strapped to his waist on a Jerusalem city bus that carried youngsters on their way to school. Among those killed were seven adults and four youths, ages 8, 13 and 16.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo condemned "all acts of violence which target Palestinian and Israeli civilians." He blamed Israel for the violence, but called on Palestinian factions to stop targeting Israeli civilians.

Early yesterday, Israeli armoured vehicles rolled into Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem. Three tanks and personnel carriers were deployed outside the Church of the Nativity, Christianity's holiest shrine, to prevent gunmen from seeking refuge there. In the April offensive, gunmen hid in the shrine, leading to a month-long standoff with Israeli soldiers.

Troops blew up the Bethlehem house rented by Abu Hilail's family an Israeli measure meant to discourage suicide attacks and punish bombers' families. Fatima Abu Hilail, the bomber's mother, said the army arrested her husband. "It is an inhuman, criminal act. I was left without a house for my children," Abu Hulail said as she sat beside the rubble of her home.