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Defying
Israeli Claims, Foreign Pacifists Slip Into Nativity Church
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Members of 'International Solidarity' hold anti-Israel protest outside the Church of the Nativity
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BETHLEHEM,
West Bank, May 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Dealing a blow to
Israeli claims that armed Palestinians took over the Church of the
Nativity, half a dozen foreign pacifists managed Thursday to slip into
the besieged holy place, and disclosed Israeli ‘lies’ about the
whole ‘tragedy’.
The
pacifists, numbering six or seven, brought food into the holy site,
where some 200 Palestinians and others have been trapped for a month,
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
They
belonged to the same group who brazened their way past Israeli guards
last month to get into the then-besieged West Bank headquarters of
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, their colleagues told AFP.
The
group of about 30 people used diversionary tactics Thursday and tried
to enter the church from two directions.
"Israeli
snipers were shouting at us, telling us to go back," Georgina
Reeves, organizer of the International Solidarity Movement, said
outside the church.
"But
we brought in as much food as was possible, and we will stay there as
long as the siege ends," she said.
One
of those who managed to evade the Israeli siege and get into Jesus
birth place, Mary Callieh, described the situation inside the church
as “good, but there is a great need of food and medical supplies”.
Speaking,
through the phone, to al-Jazeera Satellite Television, Callieh said,
“The Israelis are lying about the situation. What I see here is
people under siege, anything else is nothing but lies.”
Commenting
on the fires that broke out earlier Thursday, as Israelis and
Palestinians traded accusations over them, she said, “This is a big
lie (by the Israelis). The Israelis tried to smoke everyone out,
that’s what happened.”
Meanwhile,
Papal envoy Cardinal Roger Etchegaray met Israeli President Moshe
Katzav Thursday. He, then, traveled to the West Bank town of Ramallah
for talks with Arafat as part of efforts to lift Israel's siege of the
Nativity Church.
The
French cardinal made no statement as he arrived at Arafat's battered
headquarters in Ramallah, encircled by the Israeli army until
overnight Wednesday when soldiers lifted a separate siege after more
than one month.
Etchegaray,
who arrived from Rome on Wednesday, also intends to have talks with
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in his bid to resolve the tragedy
of Bethlehem's Church.
"I
come to ask that everything be done, and we have talked together about
that, to resolve as soon as possible the tragic situation in Bethlehem
so that the basilica of the Nativity can be returned to God and to the
faithful," Etchegaray said after meeting Katsav.
For
his part, Katsav, trying to twist the facts, criticized what he
claimed was the "silence of the Christian world in this
affair," especially "the fact that armed terrorists had
taken over the holy place.
"It
is not possible for the basilica of the Nativity to serve as a refuge
for those who have murdered Israelis and Jews," he added.
Israeli
army makes incursions into two Gaza Strip areas
On
the ground, the Israeli occupation army pushed its aggressions on the
Palestinian people, carrying out incursions into two
Palestinian-controlled areas of the Gaza Strip Thursday, Palestinian
security sources said.
In
Rafah, on the Egyptian border in the south, five tanks opened fire as
they, along with two bulldozers, entered that town. Four people were
wounded, including a woman suffering from a serious chest injury. The
woman later died, according to Palestinian hospital sources.
Four
tanks and a bulldozer moved into the town of Deir el-Balah, in the
central part of the strip, damaging the wall surrounding a building.
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