By James Bennet
21 October 2001
Bethlehem, West Bank - The spot in Manger Square where Johnny Thaljieh fell has already become a shrine, or perhaps an exhibit. His blackening blood on the cobblestones is surrounded by rocks and blue metal barricades, to honor his memory and to shield the evidence of what his family said was a random slaying by Israeli soldiers after church on Saturday.
An Israeli Army spokesman said that Palestinians had been shooting from that area and it was possible someone might have been killed in the cross-fire.
Israel is embarked on its biggest military strike in many years against the Palestinians, in what it describes as an effort to protect its citizens and to compel Palestinian leaders to arrest militants. During the last four days, it has blockaded eight Palestinian cities or towns in the West Bank and invaded six of them, seizing some buildings and answering Palestinian shooting with machine-gun fire and shelling by tanks.
Both sides say that the invasion has gone the farthest, and met the fiercest resistance, here in Bethlehem. Of at least 24 Palestinians killed since this phase of the fighting started, 14 died in and around Bethlehem, Palestinian officials said. Three of them were killed today. Eight Israeli soldiers have been wounded in fighting throughout the West Bank, the Israeli Army said.
News Analysis: Israel debates the cost of dealing with Arafat (October 21, 2001)
Mideast: Israelis invade Bethlehem for first time in year (October 20, 2001)
Mideast: Israeli's slaying ignites clashes and new fears (October 19, 2001)
Far-Right Leader is slain in Israel (October 18, 2001)
The death in one of Christianity's holiest places of Johnny Thaljieh, a 16-year-old Christian, caught the attention of Pope John Paul II. Saying he was saddened by the killing, he urged Palestinians and Israelis today to stop the violence. The Holy Land, he said, should be "a land of peace and fraternity once again."
Johnny was eating sunflower seeds and carrying a 4-year-old cousin, Michael, as he left the Church of the Nativity here Saturday evening, said Michael's father, Elias Thaljieh. Johnny put the boy down, then suddenly screamed and collapsed to the ground, rolling over three times. A bullet had struck him in the right side and exited his left, passing through his heart, his family said. "There were no armed people around us," Mr. Thaljieh said. "We thought the Manger Square was a safe place."
When he was hit, Johnny had just crossed into an area with a clear line of sight through the buildings that border the square to the Israeli tank positions on nearby hills. Israeli soldiers are under orders not to fire at any holy place, even when fired upon from one, said Jacob Dallal, an army spokesman. But Mr. Dallal said Palestinians had been shooting from the area of Manger Square. "We are not aware of anyone being hit in the cross-fire," he said, "but we can't say for certain."
Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, came under growing international pressure today to withdraw Israeli forces. During a cabinet meeting, Mr. Sharon said that while the army did not intend to remain in Palestinian areas, its departure depended on whether Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, cracked down on Palestinian militants. Israeli officials and foreign diplomats say that Mr. Arafat has repeatedly failed to jail Palestinians who have planned or committed attacks against Israel.
Mr. Sharon set three conditions for a return to negotiations: a complete end to "terrorism and incitement"; the arrest of terrorists and the disbanding of their organizations; and the extradition of those behind the killing of Rehavam Zeevi, Israel's right-wing minister of tourism, who was shot dead last Wednesday. The Palestinian News Agency reported today that Mr. Arafat outlawed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which took responsibility for the killing.
A senior Israeli military officer said that a goal of the current operation was to push Mr. Arafat to make arrests. Although some cabinet ministers have called for banishing Mr. Arafat and dismantling his Palestinian Authority, the officer, interviewed Saturday night, said that those were not goals of the mission.
"There is no political decision I know of to do anything personally to Arafat or to bring down the Palestinian Authority," said the officer. But, he added, "This is something that we might have to do in the future."
With Mr. Sharon's coalition government internally divided over the invasion and a possible international campaign to undermine Mr. Arafat, pressure is growing within the Labor Party to withdraw from it. Labor Party legislators are to meet Monday to discuss their conditions for staying in the government.
Of the more than three million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, only 1.7 percent are Christians, said Bernard Sabella, associate professor of sociology at Bethlehem University. Those Christians are seen by both sides as having having a special standing internationally. Israeli officials have been at pains to emphasize that the army does not fire on churches. Some Palestinians have drawn the attention of foreign reporters to the fact that Christians have died in the conflict, though, including at least three in the recent fighting. One was a 24- year-old woman shot while fetching diapers for her children, Israeli radio reported.
Parishioners and priests in the Church of the Nativity, beside the square, said Israeli bullets fired this afternoon had knocked splinters from the wooden roof and chipped the stone floor, which was laid in the 12th century by crusaders. A Palestinian security official said he had no conclusive proof of that claim.
Johnny Thaljieh was not a member of any militia fighting the Israelis, his family and Palestinian officials said, but at his funeral today a competition was under way to claim him. Some marchers carried the red banners of the Popular Front, while Al Fatah, Mr. Arafat's faction, distributed fliers mourning the death of its "son."
One man in a New York Yankees cap who belonged to the Tanzim, a group affiliated with Al Fatah, fired shots in tribute from his M-16, until another man restrained him, warning he could draw Israeli fire. As the funeral procession passed the site of the shooting and approached the Church of the Nativity, several men drew handguns and fired in the air.
The reaction of the Thaljieh family and friends appeared to be profound, nonpolitical grief. As the men began to shoot, a cousin of Mr. Thaljieh fainted in a heap to the cobblestones. And when the procession left the church a little later, it was led by a young man carrying the lid of the open coffin. He wept bitterly, paying no attention to the gunmen flanking the cross bearer behind him.
