Steve Quayle News Alerts

May 10, 2002
— Tensions remained high in the Mideast on Friday despite an end to the 39-day standoff between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen at the Church of the Nativity. However, Israeli television reported late Friday that an expected military operation to root out Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip has been delayed, in part because coverage of the imminent attack prompted extensive preparations by Palestinians in Gaza. Forces remained massed in outside Gaza, ready for a strike in retaliation for a suicide attack that killed 15 Israelis earlier this week.

THE STANDOFF in Bethlehem ended Friday, when 13 suspected militants were flown into foreign exile and 26 were sent to the Gaza Strip.
One by one, the gunmen walked through the low Gate of Humility, the basilica’s main door, into the hazy sunlight of Manger Square. Some waved or flashed victory signs, and one man briefly dropped to the ground, kneeling in a Muslim prayer pose. Two men were carried out on stretchers.
Israeli police in riot gear later entered the church to forcefully remove 10 foreign activists, including four Americans, who had refused to leave with the others.
About 200 people, including militants, clerics and Palestinian civilians, took refuge in the church, fleeing from Israel’s invasion of the city on April 2. Some had been released in the interim, but 123 remained trapped until this week’s deal was reached.
Friday’s agreement ended a week of cliffhanger negotiations and set the stage for the promised Israeli troop withdrawal from Bethlehem. But the activists were holding up the pullout when they refused to leave the church, insisting they be accompanied by a lawyer. It was not clear if their demand was met.
The activists had sneaked into the church on May 2 in a show of solidarity with the Palestinians. Israel had said it would not leave the city, where residents had been kept under round-the-clock curfews for more than five weeks, until the church had been emptied.
In Washington, President Bush issued a statement hailing the the end of the standoff.
“The end of the standoff in Bethlehem is a positive development that removes an obstacle to restoring security cooperation between the parties and should advance the prospects for resuming a political peace process,” the written statement said. “As I said on April 4, this can only happen if all parties assume their responsibilities for fighting terror and promoting peace.”

GAZA RAID EXPECTED
Even as the Bethlehem deal surfaced, Israeli forces were massing near the Gaza Strip for a possible strike in retaliation for suicide bombings, including this week’s attack on Tel Aviv that killed 15 Israelis dead — a strike claimed by the Islamic militant group Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has vowed retaliation and action appeared imminent. In densely populated Gaza, home to more than 1 million Palestinians, residents fearing an Israeli incursion crowded bakeries and stocked up on food. At the Jabalya refugee camp, a militant stronghold that is home to 100,000 Palestinians, residents blocked entrances with mounds of rubble and sand. Gunmen wandered the alleyways.
But late Friday, Israeli television reported that the operation was on hold amid reports that the army’s plans had been leaked.
Israeli defense officials wouldn’t confirm or deny the report. One official said only, “We will do it whenever we decide to do it.”
Palestinian militants have reportedly made extensive preparations, including laying mines. An operation in the narrow alleys of Gaza, home base for the militant group Hamas, is potentially much more dangerous for Israeli troops than its previous invasion of West Bank towns, analysts say.

“COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT”
In a separate development Friday, Israel blew up a six-apartment building that was home to a Palestinian suicide bomber who was responsible for killing 29 people in the infamous Passover Massacre, which prompted Israel’s West Bank invasion.

“Israeli reservists and special engineering corps forces destroyed the home of Abdel-Basset Odeh, a Hamas activist, who carried out the murderous attack in Netanya’s Park Hotel on March 27 on Passover eve,” an army said in a statement.
Witnesses said the army ordered some 70 family members and other relatives of Odeh to evacuate the four-story building before they rigged it with explosives and blew it up.
The force of the blast totally or partially destroyed eight other apartments in two adjacent buildings and shattered windows of scores of other houses. About 100 people were left
homeless, residents said.
Palestinians and human rights groups say destroying houses of Palestinians involved in attacks on Israelis amounts to a collective punishment. Israel routinely conducted house demolitions before it signed interim peace deals with the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993.

Also on Friday, in the southern Israeli town of Beersheba, a bomb exploded near a bank, lightly injuring six people. Police detained two suspects, including one apprehended by a bystander who said he witnessed two men placing a bag near the bank. It was not clear if a Palestinian militant group was behind the blast.

MILITIA MEMBERS DEPORTED
After the gunmen emerged from the Church of the Nativity, starting before 7 a.m. Friday, they were taken to a nearby military base, where the Israeli army briefly questioned them.
They were then driven to Israel’s international airport near Tel Aviv and flown to Cyprus, where they were expected to stay for a few days before being sent to various European countries. Another 26 were driven in two buses to the Gaza Strip, escorted by U.S. officials.
Eighty-four Palestinian civilians and policemen not wanted by Israel were released.
Among the 13 deportees were nine members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, and three members of Hamas. The 13th was Abdullah Daoud, the Palestinian intelligence chief in Bethlehem.
Arafat came under scathing criticism from Fatah and Hamas for approving the deportations — a first in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel has expelled hundreds of Palestinian activists since the 1967 Mideast war, but always unilaterally.
Arafat’s senior adviser, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, defended the Palestinian leader against the accusations Friday, saying he had made the best possible deal. “President Arafat personally stressed that no Palestinian was to be turned over the Israeli government ... and this is what happened,” Abu Rdeneh said.
Israeli officials have also come under fire at home for allowing the gunmen to slip away. Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Sharon, insisted that justice had been served. “I think we achieved all our goals and the innocent people, the clergy and the priests who were held there were released intact,” Gissin said.

As he arrived in the Gaza Strip with the 25 others, Mazen Hussein, a 29-year-old who served in the Palestinian police force in Bethlehem, was welcomed by fellow officers.
“It’s hard for us to leave Bethlehem, but we sacrificed ourselves to spare more than 140,000 people in Bethlehem from living under continued Israeli occupation,” he said.
Cypriot officials said the deportees would be kept under guard at a hotel in Larnaca.
From Cyprus, they would continue on Italy, Spain, Austria, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and possibly Canada, according to EU officials.
There was no indication that the Palestinians would face confinement in the host countries. An Italian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the details of the exile would be worked out at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.
U.S. agents, wearing protective equipment on Friday, facilitated the handover of the militants in the the Church of Nativity.
The United States, the Vatican and EU officials were heavily involved in negotiations to end the standoff.
The main sticking point in recent days had been finding a host country for the 13 top wanted men. Italy balked at taking in all of the men, but a breakthrough came when Cypriot Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides said his country would temporarily accept them until they were flown to final destinations.

NBC’s Tom Aspell in Bethlehem, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
http://msnbc.com/news/677951.asp