Bethlehem mayor says Israeli army is ransacking towns
Occupied Jerusalem: 3 April, 2002 (IAP News)
Bethlehem mayor says Israeli army is ransacking towns
Occupied Jerusalem: 3 April, 2002 (IAP News)
Bethlehem mayor Hanna Nasser has accused the Israeli troops of ransacking
his town and perpetrating war crimes against innocent civilians.
"The bodies of the dead are left in the streets,
and wounded are bleeding to death while the Israeli army is refusing rescuers
to move in the city."
"This is unacceptable from the humanitarian perspective…
this is unacceptable." He added.
Nasser warned the Israeli army against attacking
the Church of the Nativity where three hundred citizens sought haven
from Israeli bombardment.
"I advise the Israeli army to think a thousand times
before attacking the Church," said Nasser.
He pointed out that the Israeli army was indulging
in "indiscriminate killing" and "occupying religious places."
Nasser said the Israeli invaders ordered all journalists
and correspondents into one hotel, telling them not to film any "military
activity because we will do whatever we want to do."
Nasser said as many as 17 Palestinians, most of
them civilians, have been killed by Israeli bullets or in aerial and artillery
bombardment of civilian neighborhoods in the city.
He said Red Cross rescuers were utterly unable to
reach those killed or injured "because the Israeli army is shooting anything
moving."
Earlier, Christian clergymen in Jerusalem and Bethlehem
appealed to US President Bush to force Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
to put an end to his army's rampage in Palestinian towns.
The Israeli army on Wednesday turned back more than
a hundred clergymen who sought to come to Bethlehem from Jerusalem to express
solidarity with the beleaguered inhabitants of the city.
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