Free Republic

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – In a sign of improved stability in the West Bank, Israel is removing concrete blast walls put up eight years ago to shield a settlement on Jerusalem's outskirts from Palestinian gunfire and shells. Israeli army engineers on Sunday hoisted away sections of a 3-meter (10-foot) high concrete wall in Gilo, a settlement on the southern edge of Jerusalem targeted from the nearby West Bank town of Beit Jala during a Palestinian uprising. The uprising, or Intifada, erupted in 2000, after the collapse of peace talks and died out some five years later. "This is the first time...

Off the record, many Christians in Bethlehem who were interviewed last week expressed deep concern over increased attacks by Muslims on members of their community. "The Christians here are perceived as easy prey," says a prominent Christian businessman. "After the Palestinian Authority arrived here in 1995, many Muslim families from Hebron and other parts of the West Bank have moved to Beit Jala," said a local physician. "Some of them have illegally seized privately-owned lands." Fatah gunmen in Beit Jala who fired into the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo in the first years of the intifada are also responsible for the...

A senior Fatah activist was assassinated by Israel on Sunday evening when a public telephone exploded in his hand in the West Bank town of Beit Jala, Palestinian witnesses said. They identified him as Mohammed Abayat, 25, a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group affiliated with Fatah movement. Kamal Ahmed, secretary-general of Fatah's Bethlehem branch, accused Israel of assassinating Abayat. The witnesses said Abayat was killed by an explosion as he made a call in a public telephone booth near a hospital in Beit Jala, a town outside Bethlehem. Medical officials said the blast occurred shortly after Abayat...