Bomber's home bulldozed as soldiers return to Bethlehem

Israeli soldiers were back in Bethlehem yesterday. An armoured personnel carrier was parked in Manger Square, its machine-gun angled across the entrance to the Church of the Nativity, believed to be the site of the birthplace of Jesus.

This was the Israeli government's response to the suicide bombing that killed 11 people, four of them children, on a bus in Jerusalem on Thursday. Ariel Sharon ordered the army back to Bethlehem, the only West Bank city it has withdrawn from for any length of time since reoccupying almost all of them in June.

The army declared the city closed to journalists yesterday. Inside, soldiers were rounding up Palestinians. But, despite the occasional explosion, the atmosphere was nothing like as tense as during earlier incursions. There was no sign of the resistance the army met from Palestinian security forces and militants in April.

The return of the soldiers will come as a blow to the people of Bethlehem. While Palestinians in other West Bank cities have been living under 24-hour curfews, in Bethlehem life had returned to a semblance of normality. People were beginning to make plans for Christmas. Now no one knows if the army will still be here by then.

In the suburbs, a pile of flattened concrete was all that was left of a house. This was where Nael Abu Hilail, Thursday's suicide bomber, lived with his family. The army dynamited the house yesterday, leaving Abu Hilail's mother, Fatme, and his young brothers and sisters homeless – a tactic of the military that human rights groups have condemned as "collective punishment". "They gave us 10 minutes to take our things from the house," Ms Abu Hilail said. "We didn't have time to get a mattress. There wasn't even time for the children to dress." She was staying with her children – the youngest is four – in an empty shop.

The suicide bomber's father was detained and could face deportation to the Gaza Strip. "I didn't want to lose my son," Ms Abu Hilail said. "You don't want to lose yours. Of course it is wrong that he killed those innocent children. But what was his motivation? Seeing Palestinian children killed on the television."

The Mayor of Bethlehem, Hanna Nasser, said: "What's happening in Bethlehem is a circus. There's one tank in Manger Square, maybe one in the east of the city. They're going to achieve nothing. It's just public relations for Sharon." The authorities say militants have started using Bethlehem as a base because of the army's withdrawal.

The move to pull back the army came from the Labour party when it was still in the coalition government. Now that Labour has quit the government, Mr Sharon and his Defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, may have other plans.