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Israeli helicopters, tanks fire at church, kill Italian priest

Occupied Jerusalem - An Italian priest was killed and a number of nuns injured inside a church in Bethlehem Tuesday when Israeli helicopter gunships and artillery bombarded Palestinian civilian neighborhoods in the traditional birth place of Jesus.

Church sources said Jacques Amateis, 65, died in St. Mary's convent in Bethlehem while saying mass inside the church.

A number of nuns were also wounded in the attack.

The incident happened as Israeli tanks converged at Manger Square in Bethlehem in an effort to crush the Palestinian uprising against Jewish colonization and military occupation.

Earlier, American-supplied apache helicopters strafed the vicinity of the Church of the Nativity with heavy machine gun fire, injuring many people.

Among the injured is a Christian Orthodox cameraman, working for the Jazeera satellite television.

Hospital sources said Majdi Bannoura, 30, was seriously injured in Israeli helicopter strafing of the biblical city.

In a similar incident, Israeli tanks fired artillery shells at a Mosque in the Palestinian town of Tulkarm, inflicting heavy damage.

The targeting by the Israeli army of Christian and Muslim holy places angered Palestinian officials.

"Look, they are bombing churches and mosques from the air and from land and then they would shout anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism," said Sheikh Yousef Salem, a high-ranking PA official.

He described the Israeli army as "worse than the Gestapo."

"They are Nazis, but they control America and have good public relations." (3 nisan 2002 10:12 TSİ)