Israeli, Palestinian Negotiators Receive list of Palestinians inside Church

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, May 05, 2002

Israeli, Palestinian Negotiators Receive list of Palestinians inside Church

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Israeli and Palestinian negotiators who met late Saturday in an attempt to end the month-long standoff at the Church of the Nativity in West Bank city of Bethlehem received a name list of 123 Palestinians holed up inside the church, Palestinian officials said.

The head of the Palestinian civil liaison apparatus in Bethlehem, Imad Natsha, said that he handed both Israeli and Palestinian negotiators the name list of the Palestinians holed up in the church to help them ending the standoff. name list

Palestinian negotiators said that U.S. and British officials were also taking part in the negotiations.

Palestinian sources had told Xinhua earlier that senior aides to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were participating in the talks, without saying who they were.

The most thorny issue in the talks is concerning the 30 Palestinian militants inside the Church as Israel insisted they should be either arrested and detained in Israeli jails, or be deported for life.

The Palestinians had proposed that the men wanted by Israel be sent to the Palestinian-controlled West Bank town of Jericho -- a similar deal to what helped end the Israeli siege of Arafat's headquarters in West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday.

Mayor of Bethlehem Hanna Nasser had said that since U.S. officials were involved in the talks, "he is pretty sure that the standoff would end in the coming few hours."

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