Israeli troops storm Bethlehem after bus bombing

BETHLEHEM, West Bank - Israeli soldiers raided Bethlehem for the first time in six months on Friday and demolished the family home of a Palestinian who killed 10 Israelis in a suicide bombing.

Israeli Vice Premier Ehud Olmert said the attack had put another nail "in the coffin of the 'road map"' -- a US-backed peace plan stalled by violence.

As Israel buried those killed in Thursday's bus bombing, the rift widened over the legality of a huge Israeli barrier which snakes through the West Bank.

Israel says the barrier is a security fence against suicide bombers. Palestinians call it a land grab that prejudges borders of a future Palestinian state.

Angered the case has gone to the World Court, Israel formally challenged the court's right to rule on the barrier saying it was "political issue, which must be dealt with by direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians."

Both the United States and Britain, which regard the barrier as a problem, sided with Israel over the role of the court.

With its legal challenge, Israel met a deadline for all interested parties to submit arguments by Friday.

The court begins deliberations on the project on February 23 in response to a UN General Assembly request to rule whether Israel is legally obliged to tear down the barrier.

Two groups, Hamas and al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, issued separate claims of responsibility for the suicide bombing in Jerusalem that occurred on the same day Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah swapped prisoners.

In another sign of deepening tensions, Hamas threatened to kidnap Israeli troops, saying it was the only way to gain the release of some 7,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails.

Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told reporters in Gaza City there was "no solution for the issue of (Palestinian) prisoners except by capturing soldiers of the enemy and exchanging them for ours."

A senior Israel official hit back, warning Hamas "not to mess with us."

DAY RAID

Responding to Thursday's bombing, Israeli troops, backed by about 15 armored vehicles, swooped on Bethlehem before daybreak and pulled out in the afternoon, ending what the army called an operation to detain wanted militants.

Palestinian sources said 12 people were taken into custody. The army said it arrested five Palestinians on its wanted list.

At Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem, the army blew up the family home of Ali Jaara, the Palestinian policeman who carried out the attack.

"Every Palestinian mother would be proud of her martyr son," his mother Fatahiya, 50, told Reuters. Twelve people lived in the two-story, concrete house.

The Israeli army says such demolitions deter future attacks. Palestinians call the practice collective punishment, and international human rights groups have condemned it.

Israel handed Bethlehem to Palestinian police in July to bolster the road map. Israeli officials said at the time the army would be back if Palestinian forces did not rein in militants in the city of Jesus's birth.

An Israeli security source called the raid a "measured response" to the bombing, but Palestinian President Yasser Arafat called the incursion a "conspiracy against peace."

His remarks were particularly jarring to Israelis, given that many believe Israel already paid too high a price by trading more than 400 Arab prisoners -- mostly Palestinians -- for a kidnapped Israeli businessman and three dead soldiers.

The Israeli soldiers were laid to rest in funerals televised nationally on Friday while the bomb victims were buried in equally sombre but less public ceremonies.

The bodies of the Israeli troops, abducted by Hizbollah during a border patrol in 2000, were flown home on Thursday.

Honor guards fired 21-gun salutes at separate military funerals for the soldiers as families stood in stoic silence.

As part of the same prisoner swap deal, the bodies of 60 Lebanese and Arab fighters killed during a 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon were returned from Israel to Lebanon.

Israeli soldiers on Friday shot dead a Hamas militant near the West Bank city of Hebron, and troops in the Gaza Strip killed two Palestinians armed with explosives and a rocket-propelled grenade, Israeli military sources said.

- REUTERS