The 5-week standoff at the Church of the Nativity neared an end Thursday with a complex deal to scatter 13 Palestinian militants among up to eight countries and clear the way for Israeli forces to withdraw from the last West Bank city they occupy.
But the arrangement reached with European negotiators did not spell an end to Palestinian-Israeli bloodshed. As the final logistics were being worked out, Israeli tanks stood poised outside the Gaza Strip ahead of an expected retaliatory attack for a suicide bombing that killed 15 Israelis.
Israel's siege over Christ's reputed birthplace was one of the focal points of its West Bank invasion, and ending it became an international cliffhanger of on-again, off-again breakthroughs.
With Israel linking the men to terrorism, finding a country willing to take them has been a major obstacle to ending the siege at one of the holiest sites in the Christian world.
A breakthrough came when Cypriot Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides said his country would temporarily take in the 13 Palestinians before they were flown to their final destinations.
A British military aircraft took off from an air base in Cyprus about 11 p.m. local time (4 p.m. EDT) for Israel to pick up the men, said British officials in Cyprus, speaking on condition of anonymity. They said two Cypriot police were aboard to escort the Palestinians back. There was no word on the plane's arrival in Israel.
A resolution seemed near on Tuesday but Italy had balked at taking the 13 militants in the church whom Israel insists on deporting.
A senior Palestinian official confirmed a new deal had been reached, but Israeli military sources said they did not believe the Palestinians would leave the church until Friday morning.
An Italian Foreign Ministry official said late Thursday that under the new deal that emerged, Italy and Spain would take some of the militants, while Austria, Greece, Luxembourg, Ireland and perhaps Canada might take the rest. However, Canadian foreign affairs spokesman Oussamah Tamim said Canada hasn't been asked. `These reports to the effect that we will be involved in this are wrong."
The Italian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the details of the exile would be worked out at an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday.
(China Daily May 10, 2002)
