Mr Yasser Arafat welcomed the end of the stand-off at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem today and demanded an Israeli troop withdrawl from the West Bank city.
"What has been achieved is a very important step, and we hope that they will continue their withdrawal directly from all of Bethlehem," the Palestinian president said.
Under a European-brokered deal, 13 militants left the church and were flown to Cyprus at the start of an exile that will take them to other countries. Twenty-six other militants were taken from the church to the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army has vowed to leave Bethlehem but has not said when it will. It is the last Palestinian-ruled city it still occupies in the West Bank following a military offensive that came after a wave of Palestinian suicide attacks.