MIDDLE EAST: The little town of Bethlehem waited impatiently yesterday for the stand-off in the Church of the Nativity to end. Before noon citizens were diverted by the rush of shopping for fruit and vegetables during a four-hour lifting of the curfew.
As church clocks struck 12, the iron curfew was, once again, clamped on the whole area.
Street vendors abandoned empty cartons, rejected oranges and tomatoes.
Customers fled to their homes and the streets were suddenly eerily empty. Israeli jeeps toured, soldiers calling out through megaphones that is was "forbidden" to circulate.
The inhabitants of Bethlehem and the neighbouring towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, which had expected liberation this day, braced themselves for another 20 hours of complete curfew and closure.
The only people in the streets were 200-odd journalists and two dozen Palestinian children trying to sell them cigarettes, bottles of water and chewing gum.
The press camped at the barricade about 150 metres from the the bottom of Pope Paul VI Street which leads into Manger Square. Television teams settled at the barrier itself, on chairs and tables and flattened cardboard boxes.
Behind them were the photographers with ladders of varying heights and long lenses attached to their cameras.
As we basked in the sun, a sort of comaraderie developed, with press people ringing round their sources and sharing not-so-hot tips.
Palestinian men and women joined the melee, as tourists. One polite pressman even apologised for taking over their street.
In the church itself, revered as the birthplace of Jesus, there was no news.
I spoke several times to Ms Mary Kelly, the Irish nurse from Cork who gained entry to the church along with nine other peace activists and one press photographer last Friday.
"We know nothing in here," Ms Kelly told me repeatedly during the long, hot afternoon. At least 123 Palestinians and 30 clerics have been in the church since Israel occupied Bethlehem and besieged the church on April 2nd.
On Saturday both Israel and the Palestine Authority raised the level of negotiators to bring an early end to the month-long stand-off. Israeli intelligence agents took over from the army and an aide to the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, from from a local negotiating committee.
The US Central Intelligence Agency chief in Tel Aviv, Mr Jeff O'Connell, joined the talks and a British security expert attached to the European mission to the peace process was called in help sort out the details of deal.
The aim of the effort was to end the siege of the church before the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, meets President Bush, today.
However, no agreement was reached because Israel demanded that 13 Palestinian militants should be deported to Italy, rather than the seven initially agreed. Furthermore, Israel insisted that another 30 Palestinians should be transferred to Gaza, tried and imprisoned there.
Palestinian spokesmen claimed that Israel was raising the number on the list of deportees and detainees to justify holding for so long the 250 people who originally sought sanctuary in the church and to undermine the credibiliby of Mr Arafat by compelling him to meet its demands.
Yesterday afternoon the Israeli army distributed to journalists in Bethlehem a list of "senior wanted suspects from the Palestinian terrorist organisations hiding in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity". Ten men were on this list, one is said to be dead, two others are known to be outside the church.
The US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, said before the stalemate stalled progress that a deal was "near. We need one or two little problems solved."