Word: beit
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Beit Jala misadventure highlights some of the obstacles to a "rolling cease-fire" between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel withdrew from the Bethlehem village before dawn on Thursday, following a local truce brokered by European diplomats. They had agreed to leave if Palestinian gunmen stopped firing on their positions and on the adjacent Israeli neighborhood of Gilo, although fierce fire fights into the night on Wednesday had placed the deal in jeopardy. But although it offered a face-saving exit from an operation that appeared to cause Israel more problems than it solved, and also revived the prospects for new talks...
...comprehensive cease-fire throughout the West Bank and Gaza, the two sides would work towards such a cease-fire by establishing such agreements on a town-by-town basis. But as violence raged throughout the West Bank and Gaza, the potential for events elsewhere to reignite the battle of Beit Jala remained high...
...cease-fire was achieved less by the force of arms deployed by either side than the by the political and diplomatic crisis the standoff had provoked. Indeed, Tuesday's plea by Israeli defense minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer to foreign minister Peres to step up diplomatic efforts to resolve the Beit Jala crisis suggests that the military had found itself in something of a bind. Its presence had escalated rather than curbed the firing at Gilo, and a long-term reoccupation of the town would carry damaging political, diplomatic and security consequences. The U.S. had publicly warned Israel that...
...Mustafa. The shooting prompted Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to make good on a previous warning that Israel would not tolerate any further gunfire directed at Gilo, which Israel regards as part of Jerusalem but the Palestinians see as a settlement because it was built on land annexed after 1967. Beit Jala is a predominantly Christian Palestinian village that lies across a ravine within rifle range, and its residents have repeatedly complained to Arafat that they're exposed to great danger by Palestinian fighters who come into the area to fire at Gilo. On Monday they found themselves at the center...
...doubt that they're planning to stay permanently in Beit Jala, but they're trying to get assurances that Palestinians won't shoot again at Gilo. But the question now is who is in a position to give such guarantees? When the Israelis come into their areas, the Palestinian Authority security people are joining the gunmen in defending the sovereignty of their areas...