Negotiations set over Bethlehem church standoff

Israeli and Palestinian officials were today meeting in a bid to end a standoff at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity where 200 gunmen are besieged by Israeli forces, the town’s mayor said.

In Jenin yesterday, Israeli troops pulled back from parts of the city, allowing residents access to the hospital for the first time in a week. Palestinians claim a massacre took place in the refugee camp, while Israel insists that most of the casualties were armed.

Israeli defence minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Israel TV that Israel would make efforts to pull its forces out of most Palestinian areas, including Jenin and the city of Nablus, by Sunday.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the withdrawals would take place within a week, but Israeli forces would maintain their siege at the church in Bethlehem and around Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s office in Ramallah until suspected militants there surrender.

Bethlehem Mayor Hana Nasser said that Palestinian officials, including the governor of the Bethlehem area, would meet with Israeli officials at the town’s Peace Centre. Israeli officials would not comment.

Mr Sharon said the suspected militants could choose between exile and trial in Israel, but the proposal has not been accepted by the Palestinians.

Mr Nasser appealed to Pope John Paul II to come to Bethlehem and help resolve the crisis.

Yesterday, a Palestinian who left the church was shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers. The military said two suspected militants left the church, approached soldiers and ignored orders to halt.

The soldiers opened fire, wounding one. He was taken to a hospital for treatment. The other returned to the church. Also, a priest who was taken ill was moved to a hospital, the military said.

Mr Nasser said the church, which marks the traditional birthplace of Jesus, ‘‘concerns Christians all over the world and believers all over the world, as well’’.

Mr Arafat angrily appealed for an end to the Israeli siege of his office. Talking to reporters after meeting US Secretary of State Colin Powell, he said: ‘‘I have to ask the Bush administration, the international community, is this acceptable that I cannot go out the door?’’

Mr Arafat has been confined to Ramallah since December, and to a few rooms of his shell-shattered headquarters since Israel began its West Bank offensive on March 29, with the goal of crushing Palestinian militias behind deadly attacks on Israelis.

Mr Powell left the region after a week-long effort to coax Israel and the Palestinians toward a ceasefire. He said the Israelis gave him a time line for their pull-out from Nablus and Jenin, and he called on Mr Arafat to take action to stop terror attacks.

Israeli officials said Mr Powell succeeded in persuading the Lebanese and Syrian governments to stop Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas from shelling Israeli border positions, a flare-up that threatened to open a second front in the Israel-Arab conflict.

Meanwhile, Palestinians began burying the dead from the fighting in the Jenin camp.

In Nablus, military authorities released some of the Palestinians detained in their sweep after questioning, including Associated Press reporter Mohammed Daraghmeh.

Since the fighting began 18 months ago, 1,508 people on the Palestinian side and 468 on the Israeli side have been confirmed killed, but the Palestinian death toll from fighting this week, mainly in the Jenin refugee camp, was still unclear.