Beit Jala: Winners and losers

Palestinians celebrate what they see as their victory

By Simon Ingram in Jerusalem

The Israeli army's bold thrust into the town of Beit Jala marked a dangerous escalation in the 11 months of violence between Israel and the Palestinians.

Battles that raged through the narrow streets of the little town over the past two days revealed worrying new tactics by both sides.

The renewed international involvement in the crisis is exactly what Mr Arafat wanted

The Israeli troops were accused of using Palestinian families as human shields. Their occupation of a church drew particularly harsh criticism.

On the other side, the Palestinian gunmen for the first time used heavy calibre machine guns to fire at homes in the Jewish settlement of Gilo.

Mortar shells were fired too.

Life intolerable

It rapidly became clear that far from halting the attacks on Gilo, the army's action had made life for the families living there even more intolerable and threatened a broader intensification of the conflict on the West Bank into the bargain.

The crisis revealed worrying new tactics by both sides

As international pressure mounted on the Israeli Government to withdraw, Shimon Peres, whose unhappiness with the Beit Jala operation was well known, seized the initiative.

Telephone calls he made to Yasser Arafat, backed up by the intervention of the Americans and the European Union, eventually had the desired effect.

Trap

Some Israeli critics are saying the government fell into a trap by sending in the tanks.

The renewed international involvement in the crisis is exactly what Mr Arafat wanted.

As the Palestinian gunmen celebrated what they saw as a victory, it was apparent to everyone that Beit Jala was a crisis that could recur at any moment of the Palestinians' choosing.

Moreover, with clashes and shootings continuing elsewhere in the occupied territories, hopes of building this shaky ceasefire into something more substantial could well remain just that.