Israeli occupation forces entered the West Bank town of Bethlehem early Friday, in retaliation against the West Bank home town of a Palestinian resistance bomber who blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing 11 and wounding dozens. The first Israeli occupation forces entered Bethlehem from the south, witnesses said, and surrounded the Dheisheh refugee camp next to the town The biblical town is just south of Jerusalem.

It was just the latest Israeli incursion into the biblical town. Israeli occupation forces have carried out air and ground raids often during 26 months of Palestinian-Israeli violence, taking full control of Bethlehem twice before.

After 3 a.m. Friday, Israeli occupation troops entered the town in force for the first time since August, when Palestinian and Israeli negotiators agreed on a test: turning the town over to Palestinian security to see whether local authorities would prevent terror attacks. After the bloody bombing in Jerusalem Thursday morning, Israeli officials said the deal was off. The bomber, Nael Abu Hilail, 23, came from Bethlehem.

Abu Hilail's father, Azmi, wearing the white skullcap of an observant Muslim, said he was pleased with his son. "Our religion says we are proud of him until the day of resurrection," Abu Hilail said. "This is a challenge to the Zionist enemies."

Before the incursion, Raanan Gissin, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said that retaliation would include an operation in Bethlehem.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo denounced "all acts of violence which target Palestinian and Israeli civilians and claim the lives of innocents from both sides." In a statement to the Palestine Media Center, an arm of his ministry, Abed Rabbo blamed Israel for the violence but called on Palestinian factions to stop targeting Israeli civilians "to safeguard the legitimacy and morality of the Palestinian resistance."

Palestinians say they cannot carry out the Israeli demand of stopping resistance from attacking Israel because Palestinian security forces have been decimated in repeated Israeli military strikes.

PHOTO CAPTION

In front of his residence in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Azmi Moussa Abu Halail, 50, shows reporters a recent family photo of his son Nael Abu Hilail, 23, who Israel claims is the Palestinian bomber who blew himself up earlier in the day on a packed Israeli bus in Jerusalem, killing 11 people, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2002. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)