Campus Standoff in West Bank Ends Peacefully : Mideast: The new Israeli government and Palestinians reach a compromise that includes the expulsion of six fugitives to Jordan.

It was a unique moment in the 4 1/2-year Palestinian uprising against Israel’s rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: Both sides gave up on ironclad principles to avoid bloodshed and an enlarging of the vast inventory of ill will between them.

A three-day standoff at An Najah University between armed Israeli troops and more than 1,000 students ended peacefully Friday evening when the Palestinians accepted the expulsion to Jordan of six fugitives who had been holed up on campus in exchange for the withdrawal of besieging troops and a promise not to search the students as they left the campus for home.

The confrontation was regarded as a test of the efforts of new Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to improve the atmosphere and content of relations with the Palestinians. In addition, it put to trial the willingness and ability of moderate Palestinian leaders to convince their followers that negotiations--even of this limited kind--can work.

The breakthrough came in the afternoon when the fugitives, whom Israel accused of killing suspected informers, were turned over to the Red Cross and banished to Jordan. A few hours later, soldiers lifted their siege of the school and departed for military headquarters in trucks, permitting anxious relatives of the students to rush onto the university campus for emotional reunions.

The outcome defused a crisis for Rabin soon before a visit to Israel by Secretary of State James A. Baker III. Baker is coming to try to further Middle East peace talks, which he arranged, and he will undoubtedly view the An Najah resolution as the kind of confidence-building measure he had long pressed both sides to produce. Rabin, who heads a dovish government, is also expected to visit Egypt, another promoter of the talks, next week. An Egyptian official said Friday in Cairo that Rabin and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would meet Tuesday in the first such summit since 1986, when Mubarak met with then-Prime Minister (now Foreign Minister) Shimon Peres in Alexandria, Egypt.

Israeli officials and Palestinian leaders tried to extend the moral of the An Najah story to the peace negotiations, which have been going on inconclusively since last fall.

“I am almost sure that the lesson learned here is that there is a desire to come to understandings and a desire to solve problems through understanding,” said Mordechai Gur, who is expected to be named deputy defense minister in Rabin’s five-day-old government. Rabin is his own defense minister.

Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini, who traveled from Jerusalem to Nablus to help mediate, had unusual words of praise for Rabin. “We believe that Mr. Rabin wanted to find a solution,” he said. “The solution is not perfectly fair, but he is clearly ready to play the game.”

Husseini, considered the most influential of West Bank and Gaza leaders, is a staunch supporter of peace talks and privately favored the election of Rabin as a step toward conciliation with Israel.

The students of An Najah--the university’s name means “success” in Arabic--had endured more than three days without food in order to block the arrests of the fugitives, all members of loosely knit groups known as the Black Panthers, which are dedicated to executing collaborators.

Israel insisted on its right both to apprehend the wanted men and to check the identity of any student on campus. The Palestinians asserted that the Israelis had no right to enter campus or otherwise harass the students as they left, arguing that the arrests could take place at some other time or place.

In the end, Israeli authorities were willing to impose a relatively lenient term of expulsion on six gunmen whom they had labeled terrorists and who normally could have expected to serve long prison terms or permanent banishment. The Palestinians accepted the expulsions, something they have long opposed as an illegal form of punishment.

“In certain circumstances, we might have to do something we do not normally do, and in this instance, such a solution . . . will save lives, and we support it,” said Husseini, who added that the Palestinians still oppose expulsion in principle.

The day was not without violence. For two hours in the morning, Israel lifted a curfew it had imposed on all 120,000 residents of Nablus since the standoff began. The move resulted in numerous street protests, with tires set on fire in the streets. At one sizable gathering, a Palestinian was shot in the back and seriously wounded as troops tried to clear the area.

As evening approached, soldiers using rifle butts beat back crowds trying to reach the university.

Yet for all the turbulence, the ending was quite unlike anything seen here. Nablus is considered the core of the uprising on the West Bank and has been the scene of numerous bloody incidents. In late 1989, soldiers killed eight residents in a single day after unrest broke out at a funeral. More than 100 residents of the city have been killed by soldiers, and there have been dozens of brutal executions of suspected collaborators by groups such as the Black Panthers.

The compromise brought joy, along with differing opinions as to its meaning. “This was a good solution,” said Mohammed Nasser, a student who withstood the siege.

In rarely heard criticism of radical Palestinian activity, Nasser added, “It was a mistake for these six to come into the university, the center of learning.”

Other students took a triumphant view. “It’s not Rabin who did this, it was the youth,” said a student who identified himself as Ramadan. “It is a failure for Rabin,” he concluded, while nonetheless insisting that he supports peace talks.

Some students chanted, “Long live the Black Panthers!” as they left the campus, while others sang such songs as, “I Would Die for Palestine.”

The Black Panthers had entered the campus Tuesday to throw their weight behind student council candidates affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Ironically, although most Black Panthers express disdain for the peace talks, the PLO list of candidates favored the negotiations. In this week’s election, the PLO candidates won a strong majority against an Islamic group that opposes talks.

Israeli officials and Palestinian observers say the Black Panthers were armed, but it is not clear what happened to the weapons.