PALESTINIAN gunmen, some waving or flashing V-signs, walked out of the Church of the Nativity on Friday, marking the end of a 39-day standoff with Israeli troops at one of Christianity’s holiest shrines.
The men emerged one by one from the low-slung Gate of Humility, the basilica’s main door, into the bright sunlight of Manger Square. Two were brought out on stretchers, and one man briefly dropped to the ground, kneeling in a Muslim prayer pose.
The deal set the stage for a speedy Israeli troop withdrawal from biblical Bethlehem, whose residents had been kept under round-the-clock curfews for more than five weeks.
The arrangement, reached in arduous negotiations that repeatedly broke down, divided the Palestinians holed up inside the church since April 2 into several groups. Thirteen gunmen highest on Israel’s wanted list were being deported, first to Cyprus and then to other European countries. Another 26 militiamen were being transported to the Gaza Strip with US escorts. Eighty-five Palestinian civilians and policemen were to be released, while 10 pro-Palestinian activists, who slipped into the church last week, were to be detained and then deported.
The first to come out shortly before 7 am (0400 GMT) was the intelligence chief of Bethlehem, Abdullah Daoud, the most senior in the group and slated for exile.
He had to take off his jacket before being cleared through two metal detectors on Manger Square. Wearing a black-and-white chequered Arab scarf around his neck and accompanied by two priests, he approached two Israeli soldiers, who briefly questioned him before escorting him to a nearby bus.
Another deportee, militiaman Jihad Jaara, was carried out on a stretcher, with a bandage on his right leg. He was taken to an ambulance. Some of the men waved to Palestinian civilians watching the scene from nearby rooftops. Several women shouted to them. One man walked a few paces, then dropped to the ground, kneeling in a Muslim prayer position.
Among the 13 to be deported are nine members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, and nine members of the Islamic militant Hamas group. The 13th is Daoud, the intelligence chief.
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 in a unilateral move.
Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said Israel was pleased with the deal. ”I would say the … siege finally paid off. The church will remain intact, it will be returned to the worshippers, and the terrorists will pay for their crimes,” Gissin told CNN.
An hour after the first gunmen emerged from the church, the first two buses pulled away from Manger Square, and a third was filling up with Palestinians to be taken to their destinations. The Palestinians were to be taken to an Israeli military base, where their identities were to be verified. From there, the group of 13 was to be taken to an airport, where a plane was to fly them to Cyprus. The second group was to be bussed to Gaza and the civilians were to be released in Palestinian areas, the Israeli military representative Captain Sharon Feingold said. About 85 civilians and Palestinian policemen in the church were to be freed.
The crisis began April 2, when more than 200 people fled into the church that marks the traditional birthplace of Jesus, ahead of Israeli troops invading the biblical town. At first Israel insisted that the gunmen among them must surrender, but dropped that demand when the Palestinians agreed that 13 of the senior militants would be deported and others sent to Gaza.
Arduous negotiations and several near-deals characterized the effort to defuse the standoff at one of Christianity’s holiest shrines. The Vatican pressed for a quick solution, criticizing Israel for surrounding the church and the Palestinians for taking weapons inside.
The United States and European Union were active in negotiating a solution. The EU found several countries to take in the 13 militants after Italy refused to accept them all, torpedoing a solution worked out early on Thursday.
When the militants were on their way to their destinations, Israeli soldiers were to pull out of Bethlehem, the last town they were occupying as part of a large-scale military offensive in the West Bank that started March 29, a response to a series of Palestinian suicide bomb attacks. ? Sapa-AP