Word: bethlehem
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...born is thought to have helped start the Crimean War. Seized and besieged by a host of armies over the centuries, the church has even inspired bickering among scholars, who argue about whether Jesus was born here at all. Many believe he was actually born in Nazareth, not in Bethlehem, and certainly not in some little manger in the cool grotto over which the Holy Roman Emperors built a shrine to their deepest hopes...
...holy places still have special power, this church not least among them. Muslims are specifically ensured the right to pray in the Church of the Nativity, a privilege dating back to A.D. 638. Israeli soldiers, swarming into Bethlehem last month as part of the campaign to crush the machinery of Palestinian terror, surrounded the church compound but did not storm it. Two hundred forty gunmen and bystanders took refuge in the church but in time agreed to leave it. The end of the siege last week, after long negotiations that nearly went off a cliff several times, brought relief...
That outcome had taken weeks of negotiation. When Israeli and Palestinian authorities consented to the deportations as a way to defuse the standoff, Israeli hard-liners and Palestinians of every stripe complained that it was a sellout. But the situation had grown desperate. The city of Bethlehem had been in lockdown since April 2; food inside the church compound had virtually run out. Eight Palestinians had been killed by Israeli gunfire, and an Armenian monk had been wounded by an Israeli sniper...
...operations across the West Bank had stretched the Israeli army thin. By March 30, Israeli troops were already occupying Ramallah and Bethlehem. On Monday, April 1, they would go into Tulkarem and Qalqilya. The elite Paratroop Brigade was poised outside Nablus. The 5th Brigade, scheduled for Jenin, was made up of reservists mostly in their late 20s and early 30s, but the brass thought they could handle the tough assignment. "There were indications it was going to be hard," says Major General Dan Harel, the army's operations chief. "But we didn't think it was going...
...part, Arafat is enjoying the freedom he gained when the Israelis ended their siege of his Ramallah compound. His supporters are enjoying it too. In Bethlehem, where Palestinian gunmen, civilian officials and priests at the Church of the Nativity have been under siege almost as long as Arafat, gunmen in the church thought Arafat's freedom would lead to their own release and started firing their rifles into the air in glee, sources inside the church tell TIME. Israeli soldiers outside thought the shooting was directed at them and launched flares, which set fire to the roof of the church...