Battle rages at Christ's church

Palestinians and Israelis fought a bloody battle today around the Basilica of the Nativity - the site of Christ's birth.

Priests and nuns tended to wounded Palestinians beneath the cedar eves in Bethlehem's Manger Square as dozens of gunmen and civilians sought refuge from the fighting.

While four Palestinians lay dead on the square outside, helicopter gunships clattered overhead and tanks took up positions in the area, which only two years ago was the focus of millennium celebrations and hopes for peace in the Middle East.

The four dead men, who lay less than 100 yards from the cave where Christians believe that Christ was born, were members of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militant branch of Fatah led by Yasser Arafat.

The violence also intensified elsewhere as Israel continued to expand "Operation Defensive Wall" with invasions into Salfeet and Jenin in the north of the West Bank. At the same time, 200 armoured vehicles surrounded Nablus. The three towns have supplied many suicide bombers.

But the focus of Israeli operations was the attack close to the Basilica. About 120 gunmen - mostly Muslims fleeing Israeli tanks in Manger Square - shot the locks off a door into the Basilica to seek refuge.

As Israeli troops circled the church, the men rested in pews and on the stone floor. Samir, a Palestinian policeman inside the church, said about 20 of the gunmen were wounded and being tended to by nuns and priests.

Marc Innaro, a correspondent for Italy's RAI TV, said about 120 armed men were hiding in the church.

Elsewhere on the West Bank, Israeli troops attacked gunmen and Palestinian police, driving them into compounds which they then bombarded.

Last night about 200 Palestinian police gave themselves up at the offices of Jibril Rajoub, Mr Arafat's West Bank security chief. Another 15 are believed to be holding out as Israeli tanks and gunships have pounded the complex with canon and rockets. Colonel Rajoub is considered by many senior Israeli security officials to be one of the few Palestinian officers prepared to curb terrorism. But after yesterday's attacks he said: "I can give no other orders but that my men should fight to the last bullet. We are not a people who surrender".

But the fighting is exacting a heavy price. Fifteen corpses, all victims of the fighting, were buried in mass graves at Ramallah's hospital yesterday - one for 13 men, the other for two women. While earth was being heaved on to the graves, another woman of 56 was shot dead by Israeli snipers close to the hospital. There was also a heavy exchange of fire outside the Santa Maria Convent in Bethlehem run by the Salesians, a Roman Catholic order.

Both sides mourned their dead. Three Israelis died of wounds sustained in last week's suicide bombing during a Passover banquet in an Israeli hotel. That brought the total number of victims to 25, making it the deadliest Palestinian attack in 18 months of fighting. Another Israeli man also died from wounds suffered in Sunday's bomb attack in Haifa, bringing the death toll from that outrage to 16.

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