Military

DATE=04/10/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE= WEST BANK / FIGHTING (L-O)

NUMBER=2-288537

BYLINE=LAURIE KASSMAN

DATELINE= JERUSALEM

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Israel's military says at least 300 Palestinian fighters surrendered Wednesday in a Jenin refugee camp , which has been the scene of fierce fighting for the past several days. Troops are searching house-by-house for more militants and weapons. Fighting continues in other areas of the West Bank, as we hear from Correspondent Laurie Kassman in our Jerusalem bureau.

TEXT: Israeli military spokesman Ron Edelheit says the situation in Jenin has calmed down after nearly a week of heavy fighting.

/// EDELHEIT ACT ///

About 300 people surrendered (today). It's fairly quiet and once in a while there are explosions as we are blowing up booby-trapped factories of ammunition.

/// END ACT ///

A Palestinian doctor reached by telephone at his home on the edge of Jenin's camp said he could see heavy smoke rising above the center of the camp.

///ARABIC AND FADE///

The doctor, who refused to be identified, says his brother called earlier in the morning to say he and other Palestinian men were surrounded by Israeli troops. There is no escape, he told him and the phone went dead.

Earlier on Wednesday a suicide bomber from Jenin blew up a bus near the Israeli port of Haifa. It was the fifth deadly attack inside Israel since Operation Defense Shield was launched a week and a half ago.

In Daheisheh refugee camp on the edge of Bethlehem, Palestinian journalist Amina Odeh says a tight military curfew remains in effect. Reached by phone at her home, she says living conditions have seriously deteriorated.

///AMINA ACT ///

You see just the mountains of the rubbish, it will be an environmental catastrophe. I don't know which kind of sickness will be.

/// END ACT ///

In the center of Bethlehem, a tense stand-off continues between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen locked inside the Church of the Nativity. An Armenian monk was shot and seriously wounded at the compound early Wednesday.

Despite mounting U-S pressure, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vows to continue the Defense Shield operation intended to destroy the groups responsible for the suicide bombings. Israeli forces now control six of the eight major Palestinian cities in the West Bank and have declared them all closed military zones.(Signed)

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