Israeli Troops Reoccupy Bethlehem

One day after a suicide bomber killed seven adults and four children in Jerusalem, Israeli troops reoccupied the suspected bomber's hometown of Bethlehem early today.

Yesterday police named 22-year-old Nael Abu Hilail, allegedly involved with the militant group Islamic Jihad, as the person who detonated 11 pounds of explosives on rush hour bus crowded with schoolchildren and commuters. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

This morning Israeli armoured vehicles rolled into Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem. Troops blew up the Bethlehem house rented by Abu Hilail's family - a traditional Israeli method to punish suicide attacks. It was not known if anyone in the house was arrested.

Troops imposed a curfew on Bethlehem, the nearby towns of Beit Jalla and Beit Sahour, as well as the Dheisheh refugee camp. Lt Col Guy Hasson, a senior Israeli commander, said soldiers were searching for 30 Palestinians involved in yesterday's attack and other bombings.

By early today, 20 people had been arrested.

Three tanks and armoured personnel carriers were deployed outside the Church of the Nativity, the purported birthplace of Jesus, to prevent a repeat of an April siege that saw Palestinian gunmen in a month-long standoff with Israeli soldiers.

Army officials said the Israeli presence was open-ended, but that troops hoped to be out by Christmas.

"The idea is to have a completely safe atmosphere by Christmas so that tourists can come without fear of a terrorist attack," said an army spokesman, Doron Spielman.

However, in the past 26 months of fighting, Israeli soldiers have repeatedly kept foreign visitors out of Bethlehem, citing security reasons. Palestinian merchants have complained that the closure is destroying the town's economy, which heavily depends on tourism.

Bethlehem's mayor, Hanna Nasser, said the Israeli incursion would not help end "the vicious cycle of violence but will increase the suffering of the people and harm the economic standards for both Palestinians and Israelis". Troops in jeeps circulated through the empty streets of the town, following maps with the houses of wanted Palestinians marked. Detained Palestinians were blindfolded, their hands bound with plastic handcuffs, and loaded into armoured personnel carriers.

In one raid, troops moved through an olive grove surrounding a one-story house. Soldiers banged on the door. An elderly man in a bathrobe and a man in his 20s came out. Soldiers ordered the young man to lift his windbreaker and place his hands on a wall before leading him off to other houses.

It was not clear whether the young man was on Israel's wanted list or being ordered to serve as a "human shield" in knocking on doors of neighbours - a practice outlawed by Israel's supreme court.

With troops back in Bethlehem, Israel was again in control of all Palestinian population centres in the West Bank with the exception of Jericho - mirroring the massive deployment that capped military offensives in April and June.

Israel pulled troops out of Bethlehem in August after a two-month occupation as part of a large-scale Israeli invasion in the West Bank that followed earlier suicide bombings in Jerusalem.