Posted on 04/03/2002 2:18:09 PM PST by Pokey78
ISRAELI troops pushed further into the West Bank yesterdayas the Vatican summoned the Israeli Ambassador to the Holy See to accuse his country of imposing “unjust conditions and humiliations” on the Palestinians. In a statement the Vatican also denounced suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism by Palestinian extremists against Israeli civilians, reflecting the Pope’s growing alarm over the threat to Jerusalem’s holy sites posed by the current fighting. It said that the Pope — who on Easter Sunday said that it was as if “war has been declared on peace” in the Middle East — believed that reprisals and revenge attacks did nothing but feed the sense of frustration and hatred in “this dramatic situation”. L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, carried a harshly worded editorial accusing Israel of desecrating the birthplace of Jesus, as Israeli tanks encircled Bethlehem’s Manger Square. Troops tightened their hold on the towns of Jenin and Salfit, while enforcing strict curfews that have turned Ramallah into a ghost town. Police fired teargas at Jewish and Arab protesters trying to deliver humanitarian supplies to Ramallah, which is in its sixth day of siege. At Ramallah Hospital, where staff are sleeping in their offices for fear of Israeli soldiers enforcing a curfew, doctors said that the water supply had been cut off and they had enough reserves for just 24 hours. Inside the compound where Yassir Arafat is confined, Caoimhe Butterly, an Irish volunteer among 33 international peace activists acting as human shields, said that morale was high. She said that the water supply had been effectively cut off since Friday, although a trickle returned on Tuesday night. “We are not going to starve to death but the supplies are meagre. Water is the main problem,” she said. Mr Arafat’s neurologist, Ashraf al-Kurdi, who spoke to the Palestinian leader by telephone, said that his health was good and morale high but that he was overdue for a routine checkup. Palestinian medical sources said that a 13-year-old child was among six people killed by Israeli forces in a Jenin refugee camp where Israeli soldiers moved in with tank and helicopter support. Others reported killed included a 30-year-old woman doctor and the senior Preventive Security officer Ziad Al-Amer. The Israelis said that he was head of the local al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militia, which has claimed many recent suicide bombings. In Nablus witnesses said that 300 armoured vehicles had massed near the town, 20 of which had gone into Askar camp, where gunfire was exchanged. Palestinian forces withdrew and heavy fighting was expected after nightfall. On Tuesday the Pope set in motion urgent Vatican diplomacy aimed at stopping the conflagration in the West Bank to try to save holy places such as the besieged Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where more than 100 Palestinian gunmen have taken refuge with a handful of Italian journalists trapped by the fighting. Fides, a Vatican-linked news agency, said that 40 Franciscan monks and nuns and 30 Greek Orthodox and Armenian monks were also trapped. Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican’s Foreign Minister, summoned Yosef Neville Lamden, the Israeli Ambassador, to “convey the Pope’s concerns”. Monsignor Tauran also held talks with James Nicholson, the US Ambassador to the Holy See.
The burden of the Vatican’s remarks was, however, seen by diplomats as anti-Israeli, with the statement calling on Israel to use proportionate force in its acts of legitimate self-defence. It said that Israel should respect United Nations resolutions, a reference to Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian-ruled areas.
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