Nativity Talks Stagnate

Violence hindered negotiations to resolve a three-week standoff at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian. Israeli tanks entered the West Bank city of Hebron, a constant source of tension, for a short time early Thursday.

The Bethlehem holy site was one of two hot spots left over from Israel's largest military offensive in two decades, which ended elsewhere over the weekend when Israeli forces pulled out of Palestinian towns.

At the other site, Yasser Arafat's office in Ramallah, European Union diplomat Javier Solana said Wednesday that he was "shocked" at the Palestinian leader's living conditions after nearly a month of confinement by Israeli forces. After meeting Arafat, Solana complained of "a lack of water, a lack of things necessary to have a normal life in buildings where Arafat works." He called it "a shocking situation."

Israel declared that Arafat would be isolated, blaming him for Palestinian violence, but diplomats have been breaking the Israeli shell with increasing frequency. Arafat was to meet the Greek and Turkish foreign ministers on Thursday.

As anger at Israel's policies crackled across the Arab world, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said "state terrorism" by Israel to crush what he called legitimate Palestinian resistance would fuel an appetite for revenge.

But Mubarak said his country, one of only two Arab states to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state, would stick to a path of moderation and caution in dealing with its neighbor.

Witnesses said about 10 tanks and 10 armored vehicles entered Hebron from one direction early Thursday in what appeared to be an attempt to capture a suspect and not a full-scale invasion. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

The witnesses say soldiers exchanged fire with armed Palestinians and made some arrests before the forces pulled out less than two hours later. Hebron has been left alone during Israel's West Bank offensive.

A top Israeli military officer said the effects of the offensive might be only temporary. Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, head of the military's planning branch, told The Associated Press that "almost the entire leadership" in the West Bank of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah movement, had been killed or arrested.

However, Eiland said the militant groups could rebuild, and the current relative lull in attacks "might not last years or even months."

In Gaza, the militant group Hamas issued an unusual appeal, calling on teen-agers not to try to infiltrate Jewish settlements there. The call came after Israeli soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians trying to break into the settlement of Netzarim in central Gaza. Palestinians said two of them were 14 years old and the third was just 13.

During nearly 19 months of violence, Hamas has claimed responsibility for many of the dozens of suicide bombing attacks that have killed hundreds of Israelis. Most of the bombers were Palestinian men in their 20s.

In Bethlehem, another negotiating session was set for Thursday morning, after both sides reported slight progress in their talks Wednesday. They agreed to allow 10 to 15 youths, including two 10-year-olds, to leave the church compound, and Israeli forces were also to take out the bodies of two dead Palestinians, officials from both sides said.

More than 200 Palestinians, many of them armed, fled into the church compound ahead of invading Israeli forces on April 2. Israel has been demanding that they surrender or accept deportation. The Palestinians proposed that they be escorted to Palestinian-controlled Gaza.

Israeli soldiers continued to keep reporters away from the scene, briefly detaining five foreign journalists and confiscating their press credentials after they tried to join a group of reporters escorted by the military.

There were two violent incidents at the church on Wednesday. In the morning, Israeli soldiers fired at a Palestinian in the church, seriously wounding him. The Israelis said he was armed.

Later, as negotiators were about to meet at the Bethlehem Peace Center next to the church, another round of gunfire erupted. A badly wounded Palestinian was brought out. He died later at Jerusalem hospital. The military said an Israeli soldier was seriously wounded in the exchange.

Early Thursday, a Palestinian approached an Israeli roadblock in a car and exploded it as he tried to escape on foot, the military said. Soldiers shot and killed him.

At least six other Palestinians were killed Wednesday, two in an Israeli military raid near the West Bank town of Hebron. Also, a teen-age boy was killed when students clashed with soldiers carrying out arrests near their school in Jabaa village, and three Palestinians died in an apparent bomb-making accident in the Gaza Strip.

Israel dispatched a team of officials to the United Nations early Thursday to meet with U.N. officials about a fact-finding mission into the battle at the Jenin refugee camp, Israeli officials said. Israel is unhappy with the composition of the team and demands that it examine not only the weeklong battle in the camp, but also the Palestinian terror infrastructure there.

The three members of the team met in Geneva before their planned trip to the Middle East. Rejecting Israel's demand of a delay, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered to team to arrive by Saturday.

Palestinians charged that Israeli forces massacred hundreds of people in the Jenin camp, while Israel said the Palestinian casualties were in the dozens, and most of the dead were gunmen or bombers. About 50 bodies have been recovered.

In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell urged Israel to cooperate with the U.N. fact-finding team.

Powell told a Senate committee hearing in Washington that so far he had "seen no evidence that would suggest a massacre took place."

But he said it was in everyone's best interests to let the U.N. committee find out what happened.

Powell said this was preferable to "the coarse speculation that was out there as to what happened, with terms being tossed around like massacre and mass graves, none of which so far seems to be the case."