Negotiators Working on Deal to End Bethlehem Siege
Palestinian gunmen were among 200 people who originally took cover in the Bethlehem church on April 2 when Israeli troops swept into the town during their crushing West Bank campaign.

The sources said the two sides had agreed 39 Palestinians wanted by Israel should be sent out of the West Bank, but not on how many should go abroad and how many should go to Gaza.

One source said Israel wanted as many as 15 militants to be sent abroad but that this number was unacceptable to the Palestinians, who were awaiting instructions from Arafat at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Madani said the Israeli proposal called for wanted men to go to Italy through Jordan as ``guests of the Italian government.'' He said the Palestinians wanted only about four to seven of the wanted men to be exiled abroad.

``They are at a stalemate,'' Father David Jaeger, spokesman for Franciscan custodians of the Holy Land sites, told Reuters in Rome. But he added: ``The talks aren't over. As of this moment we have no information that it is really over yet.''
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast.html