ISRAEL: Israel forces took over Bethlehem yesterday after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 11 people on a bus, and a British UN aid worker and a 10-year-old boy were shot dead during a gun battle in the West Bank city of Jenin.
Israel said it opened an investigation to discover the source of the shooting at a UN trailer which killed Mr Iain Hook of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Jenin refugee camp as troops fought Palestinian gunmen.
A Palestinian doctor in Jenin hospital said bullets taken from Mr Hook's body were of a type used by Israeli soldiers. Mr Hook (54) ran an UNRWA reconstruction project in the Jenin camp, heavily damaged in an Israeli sweep for militants in April.
Israeli armour rumbled into Bethlehem in the West Bank before dawn and took up positions across the city in response to Thursday's suicide bombing of a Jerusalem bus.
Soldiers arrested suspected militants and sealed off the Church of the Nativity to prevent any militants taking refuge there as they did during an Israeli incursion in April.
"We are currently controlling the whole city," a local military commander said. The army said troops were searching for 30 militants involved in the bus bombing and other attacks.
The Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, sent troops in to reoccupy Bethlehem after pressure to hit back hard for the bombing.
But his response is likely to be tempered by calls for restraint by the United States, which fears violence in the region could undermine its efforts to achieve calm as it seeks Arab support for a possible war on Iraq.
"I have ordered the security forces to take all necessary steps in order to hurt those who try to harm us," Mr Sharon told reporters during a visit to a lookout near Bethlehem.
The army blew up the home near Bethlehem of the 23-year-old bomber behind Thursday's attack and destroyed houses in the Gaza Strip belonging to two members of the militant group Hamas.
Troops rounded up about 20 suspects in Bethlehem and 16 people elsewhere in the West Bank, most of them members of Hamas, which admitted responsibility for the attack.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said the Israeli operation violated international agreements. Also in Jenin, Israeli gunfire killed a 10-year-old boy, Palestinian doctors said. The army did not immediately confirm the death.
Thursday's suicide bombing, which killed 11 people including two 13-year-old schoolgirls and an eight-year-old boy and his grandmother, was the first such attack since a general election campaign began in Israel.
In Gaza, Palestinian security sources said a police officer was killed by a tank shell near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim. The Israeli army said he was part of an armed group attempting to infiltrate the settlement.
Palestinian gunmen in Gaza also killed an Israeli soldier early yesterday, the army said.
Opinion polls of Likud members in newspapers yesterday showed Mr Sharon maintaining a lead of between 16 to 18 percentage points over his rival Mr Benjamin Netanyahu in a Likud leadership race next Thursday.
Whoever wins is expected to be the next prime minister.
- (Reuters)