Church Standoff Deal Hits Snag

A deal reached Tuesday to resolve the 36-day standoff at the Church of the Nativity stalled when the Italian government balked at accepting more than a dozen Palestinian militants slated for exile.

After weeks of tortuous negotiations, Israeli and Palestinian officials said Tuesday morning that they had agreed that 13 militants holed up inside the 4thcentury basilica would be banished to Italy. An additional 26 would be sent to the Gaza Strip. The rest of the 123 Palestinians inside the church would be set free.

But the Italian government issued a statement saying it had not been consulted about the plan to send to its shores men labeled by Israel as “senior terrorists.”

“There are still things to clarify: For example, in what capacity would they come to Italy?” said Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino.

In Washington, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell telephoned Martino’s boss, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in an effort to placate the Italian government.

The Bush administration has pushed to resolve the dispute that has kept Israeli troops in downtown Bethlehem since April 2. Israel has said it will withdraw its forces from the city once the church standoff is resolved, ending the massive military incursion launched March 29 into Palestinian areas of the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had hoped that the troops would be pulled out before his meeting Tuesday at the White House with President Bush. The two leaders met for more than an hour to discuss Middle East peace prospects.

But the group of gunmen, Palestinian security officers and civilians who have been barricaded inside the church settled in Tuesday for another night in the cavernous shrine.

What began with a gun battle in Manger Square the day Israel invaded the biblical city evolved into a tense, sometimes bloody standoff that has attracted international attention and condemnation for both sides.

Palestinians have been criticized for bearing arms inside a Christian sanctuary and for allegedly coercing at least some civilians and clerics to stay with them. Israel has been criticized for ringing the church with troops, tanks, barricades and snipers, as well as for both starving and picking off Palestinians inside the compound over the weeks. The army has kept the city under military curfew most of the time, bringing normal life to a standstill.

Each side has accused the other of damaging the church’s priceless mosaics and frescoes.

On Tuesday morning, that standoff seemed about to end. Preparations got underway for the Palestinians, about 30 clerics, 10 international activists and Los Angeles Times photographer Carolyn Cole to leave the church. Israeli troops dismantled a crane in Manger Square that for weeks had served as a robotic sniper’s nest, with guns trained on the church compound. They erected police barricades and metal detectors leading from Manger Square to the short wooden Gate of Humility that serves as the church’s front door.

Buses pulled up to whisk the evacuees from the church. Some of them were meant to be taken straight to Ben Gurion International Airport and exile; others were to be dropped off in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian negotiators allowed into the church handed out $250 each to those destined for Italy and wads of Israeli shekels to the Gaza-bound.

Frantic relatives of gunmen scheduled for deportation violated the curfew to descend on the square, hoping to catch a last glimpse before their family members were whisked into an exile of uncertain duration. Many said they were disappointed that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat had agreed to send away the fighters, a punishment fraught with dire symbolism for Palestinians, many of whom have lived in exile for generations.

“Even if they die of hunger in there, they shouldn’t agree to this,” said Jehan Samed, a 12-year-old who began to weep as she explained that several uncles and cousins, whom she described as activists in Arafat’s mainstream Fatah faction, were to be deported.

The group of relatives argued with soldiers who tried to shoo them from the barricades.

“We just want to say hello from afar!” one woman screamed at a soldier. “Even if we can’t embrace them, we just need to say hello from afar!”

But as the hours dragged on, the church’s door remained tightly closed. On Tuesday afternoon, the Italian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying it had not agreed to accept what it described as the “Palestinian terrorists.”

The Israeli army confirmed that there was a hitch.

“We have reached an agreement to resolve the crisis of the Church of the Nativity,” Lt. Col. Olivier Rafowicz told reporters in Manger Square. “We intend to implement the agreement. The implementation has been delayed because no country is willing to accept the terrorists. We are waiting for progress.”

A source close to the negotiations confirmed Tuesday night that Italy remained the most likely destination for the gunmen who are to be exiled. The Italians, he said, were insulted that the negotiations had taken place without their being consulted, but he added that they most probably could be persuaded to accept the militants.

Another sticking point had arisen, however, the source said: the fate of rifles and other guns the Palestinians were to hand over before leaving the church. The Palestinian Authority was demanding the return of weapons carried legally by police and other security officers in the church. Israel was resisting that demand.

And there were signs that the deal--brokered by the CIA, a representative of the European Union, the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority--would be politically costly for Arafat, who already is facing growing calls from both his own people and the international community to reform his administration.

“I prefer to die rather than accepting deportation,” Abdulaziz Rantisi, a spokesman for the militant Islamic movement Hamas, said in an interview with Al Jazeera, an Arab satellite television network. “I spoke with the besieged people, and I told them that I prefer to be cut in pieces rather than accepting deportation.” Rantisi described the agreement to end the church standoff as “a big disaster.”

In an interview published Tuesday in the Palestinian newspaper Al Quds, Palestinian negotiator Mahmoud Abbas said Israel’s invasion of the West Bank had caused “complete political, military, security and media chaos” for the Palestinians.

Abbas said the Palestinian leadership is debating the need to radically reform its institutions and hold elections soon. He said that Israel’s invasion was a “political disaster” for the Palestinians and that without drastic reforms, they would be unable to “confront the political, security, media and economic battles” that lie ahead.

“We have to stop and ask ourselves why all this happened and what next?” Abbas said.

Curtius reported from Jerusalem and Magnier from Bethlehem. Times staff writers Tracy Wilkinson and Carolyn Cole in Bethlehem contributed to this report.