Reports from Palestine up to 6.00 am - Compiled

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday April 03, 2002 11:23 by blisset

Compiled from IMC reports

Compiled from Imc Italy and Palestine

Dehaishe refugee camp, west bank. 6am
it is storming again, and was much of the night...the thunder competing with the tank fire in the distance. It was the thunder that has a much nicer sound...rich, rolling, you feel it deep in the bones...the sound of the tanks was puny in comparison.

the weather has probably been a very good thing...it is cold and wet and windy...not good weather for fighting...at least all the israelis are outside in the cold, while the few fighters they chase are holed up at least dry,..if not warm.

I am not sure what is the latest status of the fighting..in this area it is mostly centered around the other camps (ayda and aza) and in bethlehem itself in manger square at at other churches that the fighters have taken refuge. The israelis seem to have no qualms though of bombing some of those churches...esp the mosques.

there are a lot of casualties reported..

none of the resistace here had any opinion that they could actually hold out for long...bethlehem is too easy to take militarily. for the people here anyway, they are saying al aqsa is over...

al aqsa..this intifada

Salfiet invaded ( 4:00 AM GMT): Israel has invaded the city of Salfiet near Nablus. The assault was staged from two different directions, accompanied by heavy shelling and tough Palestinian resistance. The invasion followed an earlier invasion of the West Bank town of Jenin.

More arrests in Ramallah ( 3:00 AM GMT): Five Palestinians were arrested in Ramallah. This followed the detention of hundreds of Palestinians who were trapped in the PA security forces headquarters in Beitunia. Those detained were taken in five military buses to unknown destination.

Palestine calls for Arabs meeting ( 2:00 AM GMT): Palestine has officially called for an urgent meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo to discuss an Arab response to the Israeli invasion of West Bank towns and refusal to abide by the newly adopted UN resolution 1402.

More killed in Bethlehem (11:30 PM GMT): A medical source in Bethlehem said that in fact, the number of Palestinians killed in Bethlehem now stands at nine, not at four as earlier reports indicated. Meanwhile, 150 clergy, resistance fighters and residents are trapped in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity. Israeli soldiers are demanding them to surrender.

Ramallah update (11:00 PM GMT): News coming from besieged Ramallah says that two more Palestinians were killed by an Israeli sniper earlier today. Earlier in the day, Palestinians were allowed to bury 24 people , who were killed or executed.

Palestinian child killed (10:30 PM GMT): A Palestinian child was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza today, it was reported. No details regarding the killing have been provided until now. Yesterday, an 11 year old boy was killed by Israeli forces in Rafah, a city in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.