Bethlehem siege continues as food supplies run low

MIDDLE EAST: An Israeli armoured personnel carrier and lorry blocked the line of vision of two dozen frustrated television and photo journalists at noon yesterday while four ailing Palestinians were escorted by a priest out of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

One of the Palestinians was taken out on a stretcher. While the foreign teams, kept at bay by a metal barricade and barbed wire, shouted for the vehicles to be removed from the mouth of the narrow road which leads to Manger Square and the door of the church, Israeli army cameramen in yellow vests and flak jackets recorded the operation. Later, the spokesman of the Palestinian committee negotiating over the stand-off in the church, Mr Salah Taamari, said Israel had reneged on an agreement to allow food to be delivered to the Palestinians holed up in the sanctuary for a month. As he arrived to facilitate the delivery of the food, which included hot meals, he was told the deal was off.

The Palestinians responded by cancelling another attempt to end the siege of the church, during which seven Palestinians have been killed by Israeli snipers and several others wounded.

Mr Taamari said: "We cannot go on negotiating with people who do not honour what we agree upon." Israel claims the 70-odd clerics and civilians are being held hostage by armed Palestinian militants but Bethlehem's Mayor, Mr Hanna Nasser, told The Irish Times the priests, nuns and civilians remain to provide protection for the half dozen men on Israel's wanted list. Israel wants to put them on trial or exile them while the Palestinians demand that they should be tried and jailed in Gaza or in Jericho along with six men incarcerated as the price for the lifting of Israel's siege on the presidential compound in Jericho.

Today, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, a papal envoy, is due to enter the church, and it is believed he could try to deliver the badly needed food in time for tomorrow's Eastern Orthodox Easter.

Speaking on a mobile phone yesterday morning, Ms Mary Kelly, the Irish nurse from Cork who managed to enter the church on Thursday, said she had treated one man for a gunshot wound in the leg and another for a serious chest complaint. "No one has enough food. People are eating leaves and grass from the church courtyard. We've got to get food here." Ms. Kelly said that the small parcels of lentils, rice and salt she and nine other peace activists carried into the church was not enough for even a day for the 170-odd people still in the church.