Israel maintains Bethlehem stranglehold

Israeli forces were still surrounding Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity and Yasser Arafat’s office in Ramallah today despite Prime Minister Ariel Sharon saying the West Bank military assault was virtually over.

Israeli troops in armoured cars and tanks withdrew from the city of Nablus and most of Ramallah yesterday, marking a scaling back of the operation, which began on March 29 after a series of deadly Palestinian suicide bombings.

But the Israelis kept their stranglehold on Arafat’s office and the Bethlehem church marking the traditional birthplace of Jesus, insisting that suspects holed up in both places surrender.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell advised the Israelis to ease up on Arafat, in order to allow the Palestinian leader to move against militants.

‘‘He has to make a strategic choice now,’’ Powell said. ‘‘He has to move away from a path of violence or terrorism onto a new path.’’

If he does so, Powell said, ‘‘there is much the United States can do for him and the peace process.’’

Israel has demanded Arafat hand over the suspected assassins of Israeli hard-line Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, gunned down in a Jerusalem hotel in October, and Fuad Shoubaki, accused of organising a cargo of Palestinian arms on the Karine A ship, seized in the Red Sea by the Israeli navy in January.

The Palestinians say the suspects are in custody and will be tried. In Bethlehem, where about 200 gunmen fled into the church compound on April 2 ahead of Israeli tanks, the stand-off continued, despite pleas from the Vatican and attempts at negotiations.

‘‘There is no food left in the church now for the Palestinians or the monks and nuns,’’ said Rev Ibrahim Faltas, a Franciscan priest.

Electricity was intermittent and there was no running water, he said. More than 250 people, including clerics, are in the compound.

Israel still has troops in many parts of Bethlehem, not just around the church. Israel said a pull-out from other parts of the biblical town would endanger the soldiers surrounding the church.

In Gaza, two Palestinians were killed in a clash with Israeli forces early today, Palestinian security officials said.

They said the two were guarding the Boureij refugee camp, encountered an Israeli undercover unit and were killed. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

Despite the continued Israeli presence at Arafat’s office and in Bethlehem, Sharon indicated that the largest Israeli military operation in two decades was over after his troops withdrew from Nablus and most of Ramallah.

‘‘The campaign that is called Protective Shield, this stage of it, is completed,’’ Sharon said yesterday. ‘‘The war against terrorism continues and will continue, but now it will employ a different method.’’

He did not give details, but his Cabinet has approved a plan to set up a buffer zone between Israel and the West Bank, though Jewish settlements in the West Bank would remain where they are.

Also, Israeli troops have briefly re-entered towns and villages after withdrawals to make arrests, indicating another form of future operations.

Yesterday, the Israeli military said it had arrested a leader of the Tanzim militia and 12 other Palestinians after a brief gun battle in the Qalandiya refugee camp outside Ramallah.

The military said Nasser Abu Hmeid, 31, was responsible for training fighters of Tanzim, the military wing of Arafat’s Fatah movement, and was the right-hand man for Marwan Barghouti, the Tanzim leader who was arrested on April 16.

Hmeid was involved in several shootings and bombings against Israelis, the army said.

Also, Israeli forces entered the village of Assira Ashmalia, north of Nablus, and arrested three

suspects, the military said.

In Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin, Palestinians ventured out of their homes and inspected the damage done by Israeli war vehicles.

Ramallah residents complained that tanks tore up their streets and shaved the fronts off some buildings. Cars flattened by tanks blocked roads, street lights were knocked over the storefronts were shattered.

In the Old City of Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp, scenes of house-to-house fighting between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen, there was grim devastation.

In Jenin, where Palestinians charged that Israel committed a massacre of civilians and denied them food and medicine, explosives planted by Palestinians as traps for Israeli soldiers were hurting their own people. Two children about 10 years old were wounded yesterday.

So far about 45 bodies have been recovered in the camp, where Palestinians say hundreds died. Israel hotly denies the charges of a massacre, placing the death toll in the dozens and insisting that most were gunmen or bombers.

In Washington, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres denied the massacre charges. He told AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, that 47 fighters and three civilians were killed in the Jenin camp, along with 23 Israeli soldiers.

Though furious over UN criticism of its operation in the Jenin camp, Israel agreed to cooperate with a UN inspection mission, but vetoed the participation of UN officials who have already denounced Israel.