A WOMAN whose childhood home is baring the brunt of the Israeli offensive on Palestine today spoke of her fears and said: "I dread turning the TV on."

Karimeh Foster's Darwen home is thousands of miles away from the current crisis engulfing the Middle East -- but she has watched in horror as Israeli armed forces responded to a wave of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is being imprisoned in his home in Ramallah.

The focus of the fighting has switched to Bethlehem -- the birthplace of Christ -- with Israeli guns pointed on Manger Square after Palestinian fighters took refuge in the Church supposedly built on the stable where Jesus was born.

Karimeh, 50, went to boarding school in Bait-Jala, a few miles from Bethlehem, and has many relatives living in the area, as well as across Palestine.

And she has blamed the British government for not doing enough to halt the situation.

Today a Foreign Office spokesman said the government was doing a great deal to try and persuade Israelis to pull out of the Palestinian territories, but Karimeh's MP Janet Anderson called on Britain to do more and said she shared her constituent's views.

Today Karimeh, a councillor, of Derby Close, said: "I keep watching the news updates on channels like CNN and it gets worse every day.

"I can't get through to my family out there so I don't know what has happened to them.

"It is a horrible situation to be in, seeing your home being attacked and the world doing nothing."

Tensions have been building in Israel for the last two years, and throughout that time Karimeh, who is married to fellow Blackburn with Darwen Liberal Democrat councillor David Foster, has been lobbying the Government to intervene.

She said: "It is time people started realising that people's human rights are being violated here.

"It is time to forget who is right and who is wrong and just work to stop the fighting.

"If it is ignored, it will have repercussions around the world."

She said few people in the West understood that many of those being attacked by Israelis were not Muslims but Christians too.

George Davies, vice chairman of the Blackburn with Darwen Stop The War Coalition, went out to Israel during the early 1990s as a TUC representative.

The Stop the War Coalition has already met with Blackburn MP and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the group held a silent protest outside his office.

Mr Davies said: "He must get involved and stop doing nothing."

Today, Mr Straw is in South America. The Foreign Office spokesman said: "Jack Straw has spoken to the Israelis and the Palestinians, pressing them to act on United Nations Resolution 14/02 calling for an immediate seize fire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Palestine.

"The Middle East will be top of the agenda when Prime Minister Tony Blair meets US President George Bush this weekend."

Rossendale and Darwen MP Mrs Anderson, former personal assistant to Mr Straw, said: "I share Karimeh's concerns about what is happening in Palestine.

"The Israelis should withdraw from the Palestinian territories.

"I hope that Tony Blair this weekend and Jack Straw will do more to press them to pull out.

"I shall be making this clear to Mr Straw the next time I meet him."