Look out the window and die in town of terror

An Aucklander's family are among those holed up in Bethlehem. SIMON COLLINS reports.

Two minutes' walk from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the family of Aucklander Miladeh Wallis are holed up in a darkened room, running out of food.

Three days ago, a 14-year-old boy next door was shot dead by a nervous Israeli soldier when the youngster put his head up at a window.

Another neighbour, a mother with a 3-month-old baby, has taken shelter in the house of Mrs Wallis' family. Fear has dried up her breast milk.

Mrs Wallis, who moved to New Zealand with her Kiwi husband 10 years ago and now has three young children, has been ringing her two brothers and their families every two hours since the Israeli Army occupied the town at Easter.

"I dread ringing them because I don't know what I will get at the other end of the phone," she said yesterday. "All I do at the moment is pray that I will see my family alive."

One of her brothers, Odeh Morcos, 39, told the Herald that 14 people were sheltering in a bedroom at the back of the family's 100-year-old house, with a blanket covering the room's only window.

"Israeli soldiers have been here three days now. They are now four or five metres from my home.

"Now nobody can show their head at the windows because of the Israeli soldiers. They are straddled all over the roofs of Bethlehem with orders to shoot people when they see something moving.

"There are some people shouting out for help, but I don't know where their voices are coming from.

"Yesterday, all day long, there was a lot of bombing. You just heard bombing and bombing and you hear the people shouting and asking for help."

The Morcos family, one of many Christian households in the town where Christ was born, are better off than most because their compound includes a well from which they can draw water.

There are only three or four wells in the neighbourhood.

The family have enough food for only about three days.

On Wednesday, Mr Morcos made a hazardous trip to a shop 200m away, taking more than two hours to go from house to house and staying indoors all the way.

"All the houses are joined together. If you know the people they let you go in their houses," he explained.

He bought milk for the neighbour's baby, flour to make bread and some canned food.

But it was a small shop, and "most of the things they are selling are just for the kids, like sweets".

"Even the grocer does not have enough."

When the Herald rang yesterday morning (NZ time), electricity had been restored for about four hours after being cut off for two days.

The phone was working, but during the power cut Mr Morcos used his cellphone. He said the family next door had to wait for two days for an ambulance after their son was shot.

"This 14-year-old died in front of his mother, his father, his sisters and his brother. He was lying in there for more than two days until there was coordination between the Israelis and the Red Cross to let the Red Cross in just to move the bodies from the homes."

After three days without sleep, Mr Morcos said: "For the first time in my life I feel confused, because you are hearing people shooting all the time. I couldn't concentrate on what I was saying.

"For the first time in my life I am thinking to emigrate from the country.

"In the last few months a lot of people from Bethlehem have emigrated because they have nothing to do here and they have nothing to lose."

Yesterday, Israeli tanks smashed their way into the West Bank's biggest Palestinian city, Nablus, as the European Union started its own peace mission.

New Zealand condemned the escalating violence in an emergency open session of the United Nations Security Council, Foreign Minister Phil Goff said yesterday.

New Zealand's Permanent Representative to the UN, Don MacKay, had made the criticism during the session, which almost 60 countries attended.

In his statement, Mr MacKay reiterated New Zealand's criticism of the Israeli Defence Force's use of excessive force and the country's belief that assassinations must end immediately, Mr Goff said.

New Zealand joined other countries in urging an end to the occupation of the Palestinian Authority headquarters in Ramallah and the attempted isolation and exiling of President Yasser Arafat.

"We also call on the Israeli Government to halt its expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

"I also equally condemn the suicide bombings," Mr Goff said.

The Government is warning New Zealanders to stay away from Israel and from areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

Feature: Middle East

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UN: Information on the Question of Palestine

Israel's Permanent Mission to the UN

Palestine's Permanent Observer Mission to the UN

Middle East Daily

Arabic News

Arabic Media Internet Network

Jerusalem Post

US Department of State - Middle East Peace Process