Birmingham Post Herald · Birmingham, AL · 14 March 2002

CP-2002-117

Tanks roll into West Bank

Street fighting is intense in the Gaza Strip

By HADEEL WAHDAN, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Transcribed from the clipping

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli tanks moved deeper into two West Bank towns today, just ahead of the arrival of a U.S. mediator, and troops killed four Palestinian gunmen in intense street fighting. In the Gaza Strip, three Israelis were killed when an explosion went off near a tank. In biblical Bethlehem, Palestinian militiamen shot dead two suspected informers for Israel.

The attackers then tried to hang the body of one victim from a building on Manger Square, overlooking the Church of the Nativity, but were stopped by Palestinian policemen. The militiamen left the scene, firing their weapons into the air. In Ramallah, Palestinian witnesses initially said some Israeli forces were pulling out early today.

However, by daybreak it became clear that troops remained in the city, and a regional army commander, Col. Yair Golan, said tanks had changed positions for tactical reasons, but that the Ramallah operation was not over. Palestinian security officials said four Palestinian gunmen were killed in fighting with Israeli troops early today.

Israeli tanks also drove deeper into Bethlehem, with some taking about positions about 250 yards from Manger Square.

How this transcription was made

Date and publication rest on the collector's slide label; no masthead, folio or printed dateline appears on this clipping. Filed under the archive’s spelling; the page prints “Birmingham Post-Herald”.

Context added by this archive

Clipped page top with a section flag 'MIDEAST' above the headline; no masthead and no printed date anywhere on the clipping, so the date is label-only. The section flag is not a deck; the deck is the two-line drop head 'Street fighting is intense in the Gaza Strip'. Golan is 'Col. Yair Golan' here — a lower rank than the 'Brig.

Gen.' of the 2005 clippings, which fits the three-year gap. The byline is a Palestinian AP reporter, Hadeel Wahdan. The sentence 'with some taking about positions about 250 yards from Manger Square' reproduces a printer's error in the original ('taking about positions about'); it is kept as printed.

Photo caption: 'A Palestinian gunman walks past the body of an alleged collaborator with Israel in this image taken from TV in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Palestinian militiamen killed two alleged collaborators today and attempted to hang one body from a rooftop of a building on Manger Square, overlooking the Church of the Nativity.' (AP)

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