Palestinians Describe Deal to End Standoff at Church

BETHLEHEM, West Bank —  Palestinian gunmen holed up inside the Church of the Nativity accepted a deal early today that would send 13 of them into exile, bringing a monthlong standoff to its end.

“A deal has been reached,” the Palestinian governor for Bethlehem, Mohammed Madani, said from inside the church. “The implementation will take place within hours.”

A spokesman for the Israeli defense minister, however, said a deal had not yet been struck. Final details remained unresolved, he said without elaborating. “They are still talking,” Lt. Col. Yarden Vatikay said early today, referring to U.S., European, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.

But the Palestinians were more definitive. Madani spoke to The Times after a mediator arrived inside the darkened, besieged church with a list of names. By candlelight, he read out the names of 13 men who would be exiled to Italy. Twenty-six other men would be banished to the Gaza Strip. The rest would go free under terms of the deal, being brokered in long hours of negotiation.

One man inside burst into sobs. Others gathered under an icon of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus and discussed the names or made preparations to leave the church where they sought refuge April 2. Several made cellular telephone calls to their families to say goodbye.

Madani said the 13 men, whom Israel considers senior militants guilty of attacks on Israelis, will be transported to Cairo under U.S. protection and then go on to Italy, where they were to remain for an unspecified duration. It wasn’t clear when the men would begin leaving the building.

It also wasn’t clear what, if any, legal proceedings the 13 men will be subject to. Israel has demanded that at least some of the men face trial.

The agreement appeared to grant Israel’s request that 13 men be exiled, instead of only eight, which had been the Palestinian demand. Palestinians inside the church sent a message late Monday to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat urging him to resolve the long standoff.

Deporting Palestinians is a sensitive matter for a people who count millions of their number in the diaspora.

“I am angry,” said Rami Kamel, a gunman inside the church. “But I will accept.”

Kamel, 22, a militant from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade who lost his hand in fighting, said he hoped he would be safe in Italy.

“Not only have I lost my hand, but now I lost my country,” he said.

On the list of 13 men are three members of the radical Islamic movement Hamas, four Palestinian security officials and six members of the Al Aqsa brigade, according to Mohammed Thabet, a Palestinian security official inside the church. Ibrahim Abeiyat, the top commander of Al Aqsa for Bethlehem, was among those who will go to Italy, Palestinians said.

Arduous negotiations aimed an ending the standoff at the revered church had bogged down over these final details.

Haggling had also continued until early today over how the militants in the church would hand over their weapons. Israel has said that as soon as the 123 Palestinians and 30 clergy members emerge from the 4th century basilica, it will pull its troops out of Bethlehem, where the army has kept residents under a military curfew.

Bethlehem is the last Palestinian-controlled town occupied by Israel since it launched its massive West Bank offensive March 29 in response to a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings. Arafat has said that he will not negotiate a broader cease-fire until Israel pulls its troops out of all areas occupied during the operation.

Israeli officials said they were eager to resolve the standoff at the church before Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meets today with President Bush at the White House, where Sharon intends to present his own peace plan and hear Bush’s ideas on holding an international peace conference.

The government underscored Monday that, even if Israel withdraws from Bethlehem, its troop deployment in the West Bank will remain very different from what it was before March 29. Troops and tanks tightly blockade Palestinian cities, and soldiers routinely raid Palestinian-controlled areas to hunt down militants.

Troops surrounded the West Bank town of Tulkarm on Monday, in what the army described as an operation to prevent a planned attack in Israel.

Meanwhile, the army issued a second apology for killing a Palestinian woman and her two children, ages 4 and 6, as they picked grape leaves near the West Bank town of Jenin on Sunday. Initially, the army said troops opened fire after an explosive device went off next to their tank.

But the army said Monday that it found no evidence of an explosion. Investigators said a tread came off the tank, making a loud noise that the soldiers inside believed was a bomb. They responded with heavy gunfire, killing the woman and her children.

In Bethlehem, Israelis and Palestinians have traded blame for what each side describes as the defilement of the Church of the Nativity, built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was born.

The weeks of negotiations, played out as gunfights and fires periodically erupted in the compound and Palestinian casualties mounted, have frustrated the Bush administration and strained Israel’s relations with the Vatican and other Christian groups.

A U.S. diplomat confirmed that a CIA officer--identified in the Israeli newspaper Maariv as the Tel Aviv station chief--has joined efforts to resolve the standoff, conducting talks with Mohammed Rashid, a senior Arafat aide. Sharon’s government also dispatched a “senior Israeli” to negotiate directly with Arafat late Monday, Israel Television reported. It did not identify the envoy.

“It is only a question of mathematics now,” said Vatikay, the spokesman for Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. “We are waiting for Arafat’s decision.”

But Father David Jaeger, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church’s Franciscan order, said that talks between the two sides stalled Monday. “They are at a stalemate,” Jaeger said in a telephone interview from Rome, before this morning’s developments.

Jaeger confirmed that the Italian government had reservations about accepting militants from the Bethlehem church. But Jaeger said that Italy’s concerns were not a stumbling block to resolving the standoff.

“There is only one issue,” Jaeger said. “It is the political will of Prime Minister Sharon and President Arafat. Everything else is just window dressing. If they have the political will to bring this surreal situation to an end, it will be over in a few minutes.”

Ten international activists and a Los Angeles Times photographer joined those inside the church late last week. In telephone interviews Monday, militants and activists said they had little food or water left.

“There’s weakness, tiredness. Everybody’s frazzled due to the circumstances,” Madani said earlier Monday. “The lack of food and the uncertainty have taken their toll. We hope it will be settled soon.”

Israeli snipers have killed at least seven men--most of them armed militants--in and around the church since the standoff began. Several others have been wounded. Madani said that inside the church, “toilets are a disaster. It’s inhumane. It’s non-hygienic. The church is beginning to smell in places.”

About 200 people sought refuge in the church April 2 as Israeli troops invaded Bethlehem searching for gunmen. Palestinian policemen, civilians and officials were swept into the cavernous structure that day, along with militants.

Both sides have compromised. Israel initially said it would allow wanted men to choose only between standing trial in Israel and accepting permanent exile abroad. The Palestinians said they would never allow any of the men to be exiled or tried in an Israeli court.

The Palestinians were claiming victory in the standoff, although the gunmen have been criticized for bearing arms inside a church.

“The Israelis didn’t achieve any of their goals, while the people inside were protecting themselves from death,” Madani said. “No one has been turned in to the Israelis.”

But Lt. Col. Olivier Rafowicz, an army spokesman, said Israel had achieved the goal of protecting, as much as it could, the church while ensuring that the gunmen inside don’t walk free.

Miller and Cole reported from Bethlehem. Times staff writers Mary Curtius in Jerusalem and Rebecca Trounson and Mark Magnier in Bethlehem contributed to this report.