Some 40 Cypriot and Arab demonstrators arrived Saturday night at the hotel hoping to present the militants with a bouquet of flowers, though security did not allow them to enter the building, news agencies reported.

Agence-France Presse (AFP) reported that they then gathered at the beachside front and chanted slogans in Greek and Arabic, and waved Palestinian flags, in support of the Palestinians. One male demonstrator made a loudspeaker call to the confined Palestinians saying: "We hail you and welcome you oh children and heroes of Palestine".

The demonstrators also clapped to a series of famous nationalist songs broadcast through speakers entitled "Jerusalem shall return to us" and "Where are the millions? Where are the Arab people?"

One of the Palestinians emerged onto his balcony, waved a huge Palestinian flag and pumped his fist in the air, triggering a crescendo of cheers from the small crowd.

The following day witnessed leftist activists and pacifists gathered at the fabled site of the Marathon battle of Ancient Greece, as they will walk the marathon-length route back to Athens in a show of support for the Palestinian cause, news agencies reported.

The rally began with cries for "Freedom for Palestine" from atop the ancient burial mound in Marathon, the ancient theater of battle where Athenians conquered the Persians in 490 B.C., AFP reported.

En route to their final destination in front of the Israeli embassy near downtown Athens, demonstrators will roughly cover the famous 42 kilometers that lie between site and the capital that have given rise to the classic marathon race, news agencies reported.

Sunday's pro-Palestinian rally is an annual "March for the Peace" organized in honor of the Greek leftist lawmaker Grigoris Lambrakis, assassinated in 1963.

While the 13 exiled Palestinians are waiting to be individually exiled to European countries, AFP said a young but visibly weak Palestinian, from among the besieged of Bethlehem's Nativity Church, was seen transferred by security men to his fourth-floor room.

"I was so happy because he did something good for Palestine. He loves his country. He wants to be free," said Ronad Darwish, a young Jordanian woman when seeing the Palestinian man, AFP reported.

"He was wearing a Palestinian [black and white] headband, and he looked weak because he was supporting himself with a stick", she added.

Ronad was among the few to see the Palestinian activists upon their arrival Thursday in Cyprus, where they are confined under tight security to the hotel's fourth floor and awaiting the final details to be worked out for their expected exile to Europe, According to AFP.

"How can these men be considered terrorists?" said an elderly man named Constatinos, an insurance-broker who is a regular customer at the nearby Moby Dick pub, which lies in a low-key tourist area.

"They are fighting against an occupation, just like [north] Cyprus is occupied" he added, AFP reported.

AFP said that the militants, whose rooms overlook the pristine blue Mediterranean sea, where the beach is covered with sun-bathing tourists, could not help but remember their native soil just across the water.

"They are very sad to be exiled from their homeland", Palestinian representative to Cyprus Samir Abu Ghazaleh told journalists in the hotel lobby amid flamingo statues, "but they are relieved that they and their families are safe and that the siege has ended,” AFP reported.