Palestinians jail killers

A Palestinian court jailed the killers of an Israeli minister in a trial yesterday at Yasser Arafat`s compound, but Israel refused to ease its blockade, demanding further steps from Palestinian leaders.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismissed the trial, saying he still wanted the four men extradited to Israel, along with a Palestinian official suspected of trying to smuggle weapons from Iran to Arafat`s Palestinian Authority.

The Israeli leader, who sent tanks to ring the Palestinian leader`s headquarters on March 29 at the start of a West Bank offensive launched after a spate of suicide bombings, said he would keep Arafat confined until he handed over the militants for trial.

A Palestinian Authority statement said the military court had sentenced four men to prison terms ranging from one to 18 years for their part in far-right tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi`s assassination in October.

But in an interview with the New York Times published yesterday, Sharon indicated he was considering letting Arafat leave his headquarters in Ramallah and move to the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat dismissed the suggestion, telling Reuters it masked plans by Sharon to reoccupy the West Bank and split it from Gaza.

In the interview, Sharon said the move would allow Arafat to demonstrate whether he was willing to put his security forces in Gaza to work stopping Palestinian violence against Israelis. He said he expected Arafat to fail the test.

"With Arafat, no one will be able to make peace," Sharon was quoted as saying.

Hopes rose that diplomatic efforts and direct talks may be easing a three-week-old standoff at Bethlehem`s Church of the Nativity, after nine Palestinian youths and two corpses were brought out of the building.

The foreign ministers of Greece and Turkey, on a joint peace mission to the Middle East, reported progress towards defusing the Bethlehem stalemate after meeting Arafat, Sharon and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

Arafat said after meeting the Greek and Turkish ministers at his ruined Ramallah headquarters that Israeli policies had effectively destroyed an interim peace deal he signed with Israel`s assassinated prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, in 1993.

"My peace of the brave that I signed with my partner Rabin has been demolished and cancelled," he told reporters.

In Bethlehem, more talks were planned to try to end the stalemate at the church where Israeli forces have besieged Palestinian fighters for the last 23 days.

Coffins containing the bodies of two men shot by Israeli soldiers about two weeks ago were taken from the church. Nine youths also left the shrine under Israeli guard.

"Israel succeeded in evacuating nine youths who had been held hostage in the Church of the Nativity. Two dead bodies were also evacuated," said Captain Jacob Dallal, an army spokesman.

Palestinians in the church denied that anyone was being prevented from fleeing. They accuse Israel of having blocked the evacuation of the two corpses and holding back food and water supplies from the church. Israel denies these charges.

Israel demands the surrender for trial or exile of more than 30 militants said to be among more than 200 people, including clergymen and nuns, holed up in the church. Palestinians say the militants can be sent to Gaza to face Palestinian justice.

"I can say that we have made progress," Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou told CNN. "It seems that the impasse has broken and there are some ideas now that will allow both sides to approach each other and try and find a way out."

His Turkish colleague, Ismail Cem, said the two sides had been nudged forward. "We were able... to have an understanding on who will leave or will be sent out, what will be the conditions of those people within church, for them to go away," he said.

Elsewhere Israeli troops killed at least six Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in violence yesterday that coincided with the intensive diplomacy aimed at calming the conflict.

Israeli tanks and troops swept into the divided West Bank city of Hebron overnight, killing a Palestinian security man and wounding at least four people, before withdrawing hours later, Palestinian security officials and witnesses said.

The army had no comment on the raid on Hebron, the only big Palestinian-ruled city spared in Israel`s West Bank onslaught, which ended in pullbacks from most towns at the weekend.

In the Gaza Strip, troops killed four Palestinians trying to attack the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom, the army said.

A Palestinian security spokesman had no word on that incident, but said a policeman was killed and two wounded during an Israeli tank incursion into the nearby town of Deir al-Balah.

The European Union`s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, also held talks with Sharon, a day after seeing Arafat and voicing shock at conditions in the Ramallah offices.

Saudi Arabia`s Crown Prince Abdullah, sponsor of a Middle East peace plan endorsed at an Arab summit in March, was due to meet US President George W. Bush at his Texas ranch.

And an Israeli team was to hold talks at the United Nations to press for changes to a UN fact-finding team to the ravaged Jenin refugee camp. After consenting to the mission, Israel raised objections, fearing it would find itself in the dock.

Palestinians accuse Israel of war crimes during its three-week operation in the camp, accusations denied by Israel which argues that Jenin was the centre for launching guerrilla attacks against civilian centres.

Annan has said the UN team, now in Geneva, should be in the region by tomorrow, two days later than first planned.

At least 1,313 Palestinians and 454 Israelis have been killed during the 18-month-old Palestinian uprising.