RAMALLAH,
West Bank, November 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - This year's
Christmas celebrations have been cancelled in Bethlehem, where Jesus
(Peace be upon him) is believed to have been born, because of Israel's
military closure of the holy town, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat
announced Wednesday, November 27.
"The
most dangerous escalation is the closure of Bethlehem, which will last
until end December. There won't be any Christmas," Arafat told
reporters outside his battered compound in the West Bank town of
Ramallah.
"The
reoccupation of Bethlehem constitutes an international crime about
which the world is staying silent, it is hard to believe" he
said, quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
Israeli occupation army reoccupied Bethlehem, in the southern West
Bank, Friday, November 22, after a resistance attack on occupied
Jerusalem commuter bus.
It
was later declared a closed military zone under an order which is
valid until December 30. Palestinian residents are under curfew and
journalists are not supposed to have access to the town, although both
measures have been only loosely enforced, said AFP.
The
vice-governor of Bethlehem, Mounir Salameh, confirmed to AFP that most
Christmas celebrations have been officially cancelled, but that the
traditional midnight mass at the Church of the Nativity was still
likely to go ahead.
Arafat
traditionally attends the mass, but was prevented from doing so last
year by Israel. There was also a prolonged standoff between the army
and Palestinians holed up inside the church, which eventually saw 13
of them sent into exile.
The
Palestinian President also slammed the recent escalation of violence
in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, where two local resistance leaders
were killed overnight in a huge explosion in the northern refugee camp
of Jenin.
Palestinian
sources said Alaa Sabagh, 25, the local leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades, the armed offshoot of Arafat's Fatah resistance movement,
and Imad Nacharti, 23, the local leader of Hamas' Ezzedine Al-Qassam
Brigades, were killed by an Israeli helicopter missile which hit the
building they were in.
The
occupation army denied any involvement in the assassination and
Israeli radio again claimed the Palestinian activists were killed
during what it described as a "work accident" - the term
usually Israel uses to imply the assassinated were allegedly killed
while preparing explosives.
All
West Bank towns but Jericho (forbidden for Jews by their holy book)
have been reoccupied by the Israeli army, which also carries out
regular raids into the Gaza Strip for the same purpose.
 |
Israeli forces
killed Wednesday a 33-years-old man near Bethlehem, and injured
a 13-year-old boy in Jenin
|
On
the ground, Israeli occupational practices continued in Palestine,
with the Israeli army shooting a Palestinian teenager in the leg
Wednesday as Israeli forces opened fire on a group of young
stone-throwers in the northern West Bank town of Jenin.
The
13-year-old was wounded in the incident in the old city district of
Jenin, they said.
Elsewhere
in the city, heavy clashes erupted between Israeli forces and
Palestinian resistance activists in the central market area, and
soldiers surrounded a 10-storey building, they said.
The
building houses a number of shops on the ground floor and offices on
the upper levels. Israeli forces besieged the building apparently
without any reason, the sources said.
Israeli
forces also shot dead a Palestinian man Wednesday near the reoccupied
southern West Bank town of Bethlehem, Palestinian hospital sources
said.
Atiya
Ilaya Rabay, 33, was in a car when the incident happened in an area
called Kabr Hilwa, between Bethlehem and Beit Sahour, which lies to
the northwest of the West Bank town, they told AFP.
According
to witnesses, Rabay was sitting next to his brother, who was driving,
as Israeli soldiers ordered them to stop. The Israeli army had no
initial comment on the incident.
Meanwhile,
President Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah movement
stressed Wednesday the need to agree on a common program with the
Islamic resistance group Hamas, and accused Israel of attempting to
foil these efforts by assassinating two of the group's members
overnight.
"This
reflects Sharon's intention to continue his policy of crimes against
the Palestinian people and is an attempt to sabotage serious efforts
underway to reach a united Palestinian stance on an end to the
violence and a return to the negotiating table," Palestinian
information minister Yasser Abed-Rabbo told AFP.
Abed-Rabbo
insisted a national dialogue should go on: "We call on all
Palestinian forces and factions to continue their dialogue in order to
strengthen the legitimate Palestinian right of self-defense."
The
Palestinian minister was referring to recent talks in Cairo involving
Arafat's dominant Fatah faction and Hamas
