Some Fear Specter of Israel Will Remain After Pullout

Sabah Azza, a mother of three, has emerged from her basement every so often to survey the damage outside and, once, to make a daring run to the market for fresh vegetables--dashing past the bullet-pocked shells of vehicles and burned-out storefronts that mark the front line in Bethlehem’s war zone.

“We were hungry, and if you are hungry, you will eat stones,” said the 40-year-old resident of the Beit Jibrin refugee camp. She and thousands like her are the Palestinian civilians who have been under siege since Israeli forces occupied Bethlehem and five other towns and cities throughout the West Bank last week.

Palestinian gunmen who haunt the cramped alleyways and winding streets of Beit Jibrin and the nearby Aida refugee camp have been doing daily, if lopsided, battle with Israeli tanks and snipers positioned just yards away.

Under intense international pressure, the Israeli government has announced that it will begin ending its largest-ever military operation against the Palestinian Authority. On Friday, Israeli and Palestinian security officials--in a meeting refereed by the CIA--agreed to a pullout from Bethlehem and adjacent Beit Jala later today.

But Israel, ignoring U.S. demands for an immediate withdrawal, says any exit will be gradual. The Palestinian Authority will be expected to enforce a cease-fire in Bethlehem, which will serve as a test case to determine further withdrawals, a senior Israeli official said. Officials will meet Sunday to decide the next move.

There was speculation among Israelis on Friday that the government will try to conclude the pullout by Nov. 7, when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is to leave for a meeting in Washington with President Bush.

The White House was angered by the scale of the Israeli operation at a time when Washington is trying to muster Arab and Muslim support for its campaign in Afghanistan.

In Beit Jibrin, Azza hoped the reports of an imminent Israeli withdrawal were true, but after a week of cowering during the tank and gun battles around her, she remained pessimistic. The soldiers had cut power lines, and the only way her family could watch television or operate a space heater was by running a long wire from a section of the camp that had electricity. Running water had been available for only a few hours at night, when Azza would fill pots and pans to get through the next day.

“Even if the Israelis pull back, it will never be a full withdrawal,” she said. “They have inflicted so much damage. I doubt there can ever be peace.”

Israel launched its broadest incursions into Palestinian-ruled territory in years after the Oct. 17 assassination of a hard-line Israeli Cabinet official. A radical Palestinian faction claimed responsibility for the killing. Israeli officials said the campaign would target the killers of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, along with other Palestinians wanted in attacks on Israelis, because Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat had failed to arrest them.

Aides to Sharon said Friday that 42 “terrorists” had been arrested in the reoccupation, though the army said key leaders remained at large. About 40 Palestinians, including bystanders, women and Arab Christians, had been killed. No Israeli soldiers died, according to the army.

For the withdrawal to advance, Israel is requiring the Palestinian Authority to restore order in the occupied communities and maintain calm. Bethlehem and Beit Jala had been quiet for many weeks until Israel killed a top militia commander in Bethlehem on Oct. 18. In response, Palestinians opened fire on a Jewish neighborhood that Israel considers part of Jerusalem.

Fighting had been the most intense in Bethlehem, and sporadic shooting continued Friday night. The choice of Bethlehem as the first city from which to withdraw appeared to be a political rather than a military decision. Israel has taken heat because of Bethlehem’s revered status; even the pope complained when a young Christian was killed a few paces from the traditional birthplace of Jesus and after numerous churches and a Roman Catholic hospital were hit by Israeli fire. (The Israeli army says Palestinians open fire near churches, drawing Israeli retaliation.)

Bethlehem was a ghost town Friday, with nearly every store and souvenir shop shuttered, as they have been for days. And there were signs of the problems Israel confronts in this kind of close-quarter street-to-street combat. Smoke poured from an Israeli armored personnel carrier that had been hit by a Palestinian pipe bomb; it had come to rest askew on a sidewalk. A tank and another personnel carrier were also disabled, one apparently having crashed when a road gave way.

In Manger Square, where the Church of the Nativity marks where Jesus is believed to have been born, scores of men filed in and out of the Bethlehem Peace Center, which has become a mourning hall. Armed Palestinians milled about. They said they expected Israel to begin to withdraw soon, but the mood was one of vengeance for spilled blood.

Saluting those killed in recent days, Kamal Hmeid, a leader of Arafat’s Fatah faction, addressed the crowd from the peace center, his voice booming from loudspeakers over the square as gunfire echoed through the surrounding hills.

“Neither Bethlehem nor Palestine will ever forget their names,” he said. “Their names are etched with the bullets and guns in the walls, stones, churches and mosques of Bethlehem.”

Rafet Joabra, a regional commander of the Fatah militia, said that Israel would probably pull out soon and that his men would try to enforce a cease-fire. The main question, he said, was whether and how soon Israeli forces would try to return. Slung across his back was a sniper rifle that looked about 4 feet long, and he was surrounded by other men carrying rifles equipped with telescopic lenses. Some of the men were in uniforms, others in jeans.

Polls published Friday showed overwhelming support among Israelis for Sharon and his decision to reoccupy parts of the West Bank. Two-thirds of those responding to a Gallup Poll approved of sending the army into Palestinian towns and cities, and the same percentage advocated rejecting the U.S. demand that the troops withdraw.