Everyone but the d@mned left wing media knows the gunmen are holding everyone else hostage in there...everyone but the idiot peaceniks, that is. The press must be PAYING these peacenuts to do this stuff...
From the International Desk
Published 5/3/2002 12:42 PM
TEL AVIV, Israel, May 3 (UPI) -- Israeli officials Friday ordered 13 U.S. citizens to leave the country after they broke through army lines to the besieged Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
The deportees have been in Israel for several weeks and are associated with the Internal Solidarity Movement that advocates non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
About 10 members of the group entered the church Thursday to be with a few dozen armed militants -- some of whom Israel wants for murder -- clergy and more than 100 Palestinians who fled there when Israel occupied Bethlehem a month ago.
The Israelis want the militants to choose between exile and trial in Israeli courts and said the others are free to go once it establishes their identities. The Palestinians say the militants should be moved to Gaza.
Soldiers arrested 13 members of the group in Manger Square outside the church. Authorities locked up the eight men detained while the five women were released after completing deportation procedures, a spokesman for the Israeli police in the West Bank said.
All 13 are to be deported and the process began Friday afternoon, police said.
Israel has refused entry to some people it considered trouble makers and has expelled others who broke into Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah while he was surrounded. Copyright © 2002 United Press Internationa
I've lost the trace of how many people had been left the church, but they're dozens of them, weren't they? But the number of those who're still inside is continuously reported to be well over 200...