A Little Town in Judea, Besieged by Israelis and by Grief

BETHLEHEM, West Bank, April 3 — They did not know much about the Palestinian, just his name, and that he came from a refugee camp, and that they simply could not stop his bleeding.

They found him on the stony street on Tuesday morning, shortly after the Israeli ground forces invaded. He had a big hole in his right side, it seemed from shrapnel, and so they helped him into their two-room home and made him as comfortable as they could on blankets piled on the hard kitchen floor.

As the crimson stain crept over his pale blue shirt, they called for an ambulance. They called again and again. There was a hospital just a few blocks away, but no ambulance could pass through the gunfire or get by the Israeli armored vehicles that were choking the narrow lanes of Bethlehem's old city.