MIDDLE EAST: One at a time, more than two dozen Palestinians filed out of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity yesterday. They walked towards Israeli soldiers in Manger Square, with a Franciscan priest as their escort.
They opened their jackets to prove they were not wearing explosives belts, and were ushered on to an Israeli bus to be taken away for questioning.
The 26-strong group was the largest to leave the church in almost a month, since Palestinians fled there to escape Israeli troops, who invaded Bethlehem at the start of a military offensive designed to thwart suicide bombings.
However, many more people remain inside, with Israeli officials insisting that between six and 30 of those still holed-up were "wanted terrorists".
Israeli officials said last night that none of those who left the church yesterday under a negotiated agreement were on its wanted list, and that all had, therefore, already been set free.
Israel is insisting that its troops will continue to encircle the church compound until the wanted men surrender or are deported. Palestinian officials reject both these options, and have suggested that the men be escorted to Gaza for trial in a Palestinian court.
US officials, who have been closely involved in the negotiations, have hinted every day for the past fortnight that an end to the crisis is at hand, and have lately suggested that a solution might follow the "Ramallah precedent".
This is a reference to an agreement, close to being finalised last night, under which six men wanted by Israel, and trapped for a month in the same Ramallah building where the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, has been held under siege, are to be transferred to a Palestinian military jail in Jericho. Their incarceration there will be overseen by US and British wardens.
British officials yesterday visited the Jericho facility, built by the British during the 1930s.
Effectively imposed on a hugely-reluctant Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon by President Bush, the agreement also provides for Mr Arafat to go free.
This would allow him to not only leave his battered headquarters building, but also Ramallah, where he has been restricted by Israel for almost five months, and to travel abroad.
Still hoping to see Mr Arafat replaced by younger leaders it considers more pragmatic, Israel has quietly been urging Mr Arafat's security chief in Gaza, Mohammad Dahlan, to take formal control of the Gaza Strip.
In vague comments about his hitherto unpublished meetings with Mr Dahlan, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the Israeli Defence Minister, has told parliamentary colleagues that Israeli forces would then withdraw from Palestinian areas in the Strip.
While he said Mr Dahlan had called the idea interesting, Palestinian officials say the notion of Mr Dahlan or any other figure seeking to usurp Mr Arafat was unthinkable.
In Gaza yesterday, three Palestinians were reported killed, two of them said by the Israeli army to have tried to infiltrate the isolated settlement of Kfar Darom. The third was said by Palestinian officials to have been shot dead by troops near the Kissufim junction.
Israeli troops were pulling out of Hebron last night after a two-day incursion during which nine Palestinians were killed. The troops, however, were still deployed outside yet another siege site - the local Aliya hospital, where Israel alleges 17 wanted men have taken refuge.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman urged Israel to "finish its withdrawal" from all Palestinian areas, and "refrain from further incursions".
However, Mr Ben-Eliezer predicted that there would be more such operations where deemed necessary, "as in Hebron, where we acted against specific targets. discovered car bombs and explosives".