Troops and Terror Among the Ancients

By Edward A. Gargan
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Newsday
April 9, 2002

Bethlehem, West Bank - Five days ago, Israel's war on terrorism came to the Lutheran Church of Bethlehem.

"We were sitting here," recalled the Rev. Mitri Raheb, the church's pastor, gesturing toward the carpet in his second-floor living room of the rectory. "I was playing with my daughter. Then I saw the soldiers. They were breaking into our youth center. I called down and said I have all the keys. If you ask like gentlemen, I will open all the doors."

But the Israeli soldiers, three squads of 15 men each, bashed in the doors to the church complex, broke down doors everywhere they went and wreaked havoc and destruction throughout the compound.

Fighting continued yesterday in Bethlehem and flames broke out at the Church of the Nativity during a gun battle between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians who have been holed up inside for more than a week.

A senior Israeli army officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two border policemen who were shot and wounded by Palestinians threw a smoke grenade into the compound, sparking the fire. The fire burned for about an hour in a second-floor meeting hall above the courtyard of St. Catherine's, a Roman Catholic church adjacent to the Church of the Nativity. Palestinian firefighters eventually were allowed to put it out by spraying water over the compound's wall.

The blaze destroyed a piano, chairs, altar cloths and ceremonial cups belonging to St. Catherine's, the site of midnight Mass every Christmas. There were unconfirmed reports that a Palestinian was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier before the fire was put out.

The Israeli army says its only mission is to seek out and destroy terrorists, but an exhaustive tour of this ancient town reveals wide-ranging destruction by Israeli troops. And amid this devastation, an eerie silence prevails, a silence of empty streets, shuttered windows, of a population in terror.

Crushed, bullet-riddled and bombed-out cars lie scattered through the streets, alleys and in private garages. A five-hour tour of this city deemed among Christians as among the holiest found not a single car that had not been destroyed. Windshields were peppered with machine gun fire, doors caved in by tank shells and, according to many residents, telephones and CD players looted.

Along every flagstone street, the uniform gray steel shutters of locked shops were torn from their hinges, in many cases ripped from the stone blocks that anchored the doorframe to the building. Shelves of shoes and clothing were spilled onto muddy floors. Pharmacy shelves were toppled. Small workshops were charred and reeking from the smoke. And in the Peace Fountain, designed by the Spanish artist Juan Ribeira, floated a dead white rabbit.

On Saturday, according to numerous accounts by residents, Israeli troops stormed into Bethlehem's farmers market, detonated explosives in parked cars, blasted the adobe-red tile roof and burned the market to the ground.

Several cars were still smoldering 24 hours later and a solitary sewing machine stood, blackened and scarred amid rubble. A single box that once contained pears rested on a market countertop.

George Shahin, a machinist who lives four blocks from the market, stood surveying the wreckage. He pointed to a cindered car. "You see this car?" he said. "In front of my house is the hood of this car, four blocks away."

He shook his head as he stepped gingerly in toeless sandals through the piles of broken glass, twisted steel, shards of terra-cotta roof tiles. "These are revenge acts," he said. "But no matter how much destruction they do, we are going to stay. They can never make us leave."

Israel says it is in Bethlehem only because of the 240 Palestinians - many of whom it describes as wanted militants - who have been holed up in the Church of the Nativity for a week, and that it will stay here until they surrender.

"These missions have not been completed yet, and the army will continue operating as quickly as possible until the mission has been completed, until it has dismantled [Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat's terror infrastructure and until the murderers hiding in different places have been arrested," Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday.

A five-minute stroll from the market, along what would have been a promenade filled with people before the Israeli army clamped a total curfew on the town, leads to the Church of the Nativity, where the 240 Palestinians remain hemmed in by sniper units in surrounding buildings, armored vehicles and soldiers on foot patrols. But Manger Square, the vast esplanade that leads to the door of the basilica, itself was eerily empty. Not even a pigeon seemed able to summon the courage to alight there.

Down a small alleyway a block from the square, 75-year-old Suhaila Abu Hamame greeted a visitor warmly and introduced her son, Faoud, who gave his age as 54.

"We don't have electricity," said Hamame. "Last night the firing was so heavy I knew nothing. I just kept my head down to be safe. I've never seen anything like this."

After five days of siege, she said that food was dwindling and the water had been shut off. "We borrowed some eggs from a neighbor," she explained, "but now we have only 10 eggs left."

Standing in the doorway of her cramped kitchen, Hamame pressed her palms together. "Only God knows what will happen," she murmured.

For Rev. Raheb, the apparently deliberate destruction visited on his church compound and Bethlehem itself reveals profound and troubling dimensions in Israel's attitudes toward the Palestinian people. "They hate to see any positive signs of hope and life," he said. "What I see in their actions is hate and revenge. It has nothing to do with security."

Raheb said the church was in the process of building a conference center before the Israeli invasion. When the soldiers battered their way into the compound, he said, they smashed doors and destroyed the office where the construction project was under way.

Indeed, touring the ruined office showed sheaves of blueprints scattered and trampled on, a mini-refrigerator with its innards ripped out, a computer with its hard drive disemboweled and its monitor destroyed. And on every wall, and the ceiling, were dozens of bullet holes. The remnants of that firing remained in piles of spent brass cartridges.

"I called the bishop," Raheb said. "When they [the Israeli soldiers] heard me speaking Arabic they began going crazy. They shouted, 'you dirty Arabs. We're going to show you. Why do you speak Arabic? It is the most ugly language.'"

Fortunately, Raheb said, only one of the church's century-old stained glass windows was damaged. And though the stairwell leading to his family residence was littered with broken glass, he said there was no damage to the living quarters.

Slumped in a bathrobe in an armchair in his living room, Raheb pondered the damage to the holy town. "I think it's the evil power of revenge," he said. "Their aim was to destroy as much as possible." Still, he continued, "I personally believe that without reconciliation we will have what we have now, which is destruction."

Originally published at:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wobeth092661829apr09.story