JERUSALEM (Islamweb & News Agencies) –Seasonal Christian holidays were no occasion for peace in the Holy Land.
Three Arab Resistance men and an Israeli occupation soldier were killed in bloodshed unstaunched by a holiday celebrated by a tiny Christian community in the land where Jesus preached goodwill toward men.
Four Israeli occupation troops and a Jewish settler were wounded.
Showing its disdain for Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government barred the Palestinian leader from making his annual Christmas journey to Bethlehem through Israeli-blockaded territory in the occupied West Bank.
It was the gloomiest of festivities in the town revered as the birthplace of Jesus. Fifteen months of Israeli-Palestinian violence made tourism in Bethlehem a shadow of the past.
Away from the twinkling lights of Manger Square, the conflict between Jews and Arabs flashed on Tuesday along the usually quiet Israel-Jordan border, from the barrels of rifles carried by Arab Resistance and the cannon of Israeli helicopters.
An Israeli occupation soldier was killed during a search for Arabs who ambushed an Israeli border patrol. Four occupation troops were wounded.
Later, the two Arab attackers lay dead along the River Jordan after the helicopter gunships fired round after round into the undergrowth.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the ambush on the frontier between two countries that signed a peace treaty in 1994.