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Siege Of Bethlehem Church Ending After 38 Days
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Israeli
soldiers take up positions at the door of the Church of the
Nativity after the last group of Palestinian policemen left.
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BETHLEHEM,
West Bank, May 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israel's siege
of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity ended Friday, as the 123
Palestinians, who had been holed up inside for 38 days, exited the
Christian holy site one by one after a deal was reached to evacuate
them.
By
10:15 am (0715 GMT), the Palestinians had all quit the church, which
is built over the site believed by Christians to be the birthplace of
Jesus, reported Agence-Freance Presse (AFP).
However,
12 peace activists who had slipped into the church last week to serve
as human shields were refusing to leave, the Israeli army said.
The
first Palestinians to leave the church were 13 activists on Israel's
most-wanted list and described as "terrorists" who are to be
sent into exile.
They
were taken to Ben Gurion airport and put on a British military plane
bound for the nearby Mediterranean island of Cyprus, from where they
will eventually be sent to various European countries.
Last-minute
snags over where they would go had delayed the end to the standoff,
but Cyprus announced late Thursday it would host them until that could
be sorted out.
At 7:00 am (0400 GMT), the men started to come out through the
church's low doorway, passing through Israeli security controls and
boarding an awaiting bus.
They
were followed by 26 more Palestinian resistance activists, considered
less dangerous by Israel, who were to be sent to the Gaza Strip.
Once
the two groups boarded separate buses, they were taken to the Jewish
settlement of Gush Etzion, near Bethlehem, for identity checks.
The
men slated for exile pulled up at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport three
hours later.
They
then boarded a Royal Air Force Hercules that had flown in earlier from
an RAF base in Cyprus. It took off for Cyprus' Larnaca airport at
12:10 pm (0910 GMT) and is expected to land at 1:14 pm.
The
26 others, escorted by Israeli soldiers, reached the Erez border
crossing into the Gaza Strip at 11:30 GMT (0830 GMT), an AFP
correspondent said.
It
had been previously reported that they would be jailed in Gaza, but
within minutes of their arrival, a Palestinian security official said
they would be neither tried nor jailed.
"They
have arrived in part of Palestine and they are free in their
homeland," Colonel Salem Dardonah told reporters at the Erez
crossing point from Israel.
"They
will not be held, not even for an hour, nor will they be judged,"
he said.
According
to another Palestinian security official, the 26 would initially be
taken to the Palestinian Authority's youth ministry building in
central Gaza and remain there for an unspecified time.
The
siege was the last battle zone in Israel's six-week invasion of the
West Bank that aimed to crush Palestinian activists.
"All
the terrorists will leave the area. All the hostages are free,"
Brigadier General Eyval Guilady said before the people began leaving
the church. "We have chosen a peaceful way to solve the
crisis."
Under
the terms of the final agreement, the last to leave the church would
be the dozen foreign pacifists, from the International Solidarity
Movement.
But
they posed a last-minute hitch when they refused to exit the building.
"The
10 activists have refused to leave the church. Apparently they wish to
speak to a lawyer," an army spokesman told AFP.
"On
the one hand they say they are supporting the Palestinians, but on the
other hand as long as they stay there they are preventing the army
leaving Bethlehem."
The
stand-off was also preventing U.S. ballistics experts from entering
the basilica to collect weapons left by the 123 Palestinians.
The
Americans "must wait until the evacuation is over before
gathering the weapons", Edelheit said.
Several
monks and priests gathered outside the church, waiting for the
occupation to end to allow the building to return to its religious
role.
Pope John Paul II's special envoy to the Middle East, French Cardinal
Roger Etchegaray, welcomed the end of the tense month-long standoff.
Etchegaray
called the ending of the siege "a great piece of news" and a
"first step" along the difficult but necessary path toward
"a fair and lasting peace between Israelis and
Palestinians," according to the Italian news agency ANSA.
The
evacuation of the Palestinians went off without a hitch.
Exiting
the church one at a time, the men walked a short distance to a metal
detector where they were met by a Roman Catholic Franciscan friar, who
assisted them in clearing the checkpoint.
He
then escorted them to a small group of armed Israeli soldiers, who
spoke briefly with them, handed them a green card and escorted them to
the nearby buses, which later pulled away.
Jihad
Jawara, a Palestinian activist who was wounded in the leg during the
siege, was brought out on an improvised stretcher.
The mood among the men varied, with some looking somber and edgy, and
others jubilant. Some waved their arms to Palestinians on a terrace
overlooking the holy site, while others briefly knelt on the ground,
as if to pray.
Cyprus said late Thursday that it would take temporary charge of the
13 to clear the way for an end to the siege.
The announcement by Cypriot Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides
came amid reports that several European countries were willing to
accept them to resolve the five-week-old standoff.
The European Union would "decide on Monday where these people end
up," Cassoulides said. "The departure for their final
destination will happen next week according to the arrangements."
Diplomatic
sources said several countries -- Austria, Canada, Greece, Italy,
Luxembourg and Spain -- had agreed to accept the 13.
Canada
denied it was a potential host, while another EU country, Portugal,
said it was willing to shelter the wanted Palestinians.
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