The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, yesterday offered scores of Palestinian gunmen trapped in an armed standoff in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity the choice of surrendering and being tried in an Israeli military court, or going into exile “forever”. As negotiations continued behind the scenes between the gunmen in the church and Israeli military negotiators, Ra’anan Gissin, Mr Sharon’s spokesman, said Israel had given the proposal to the US secretary of state, Colin Powell. The Palestinian governor of Bethlehem, Mohammed al-Madani, who is among about 100 Palestinians, including gunmen, inside the church, rejected the Israeli proposal.

Israel’s Palestinian citizens, enraged by the military assault on their ethnic kin in the occupied territories, risked the first mass confrontations last week with Israeli security forces since the police killed 13 of them at the start of the Intifada, in October 2000. The clashes occurred at several locations as the Arab minority tried to bring food and medical aid to the “closed military zones” declared around besieged West Bank cities by the Israeli army. Arab towns and villages in Israel have amassed huge stockpiles of supplies over the last few weeks but have struggled to secure permission to get the aid through.

Protests and general strikes have been staged by Palestinians on 30 March each year since 1976, when Israeli security forces killed six demonstrators in the Galilee town of Sakhnin as they protested against the government’s theft of huge swaths of Arab land. In the subsequent 26 years, Land Day, or Yawm Al-Ard as it is known in Arabic, has grown into a regional event commemorated by Arabs in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq. But Sakhnin, the scene of the first land strike, has remained the traditional focus of Land Day activities, often attracting crowds of more than 60,000.

TRADITIONAL Easter celebrations in Jerusalem were eclipsed yesterday by the sight of Israeli police launching baton charges, firing stun grenades and chasing Muslim worshippers through the streets of the Old City after Friday prayers. The thousands of Christians who normally gather for Easter services in the Old City, which contains all the stations of the Cross and the Holy Sepulchre, where Christ was crucified, buried and resurrected, were absent. The few pilgrims who did venture out were outnumbered by heavily armed Israeli police.

The man who commands Israel’s powerful military machine, Chief-of-Staff Shaul Mofaz, has never shied away from the cameras. So it came as no surprise when, the weekend after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the army to withdraw from Ramallah, Mofaz accepted an invitation to appear on Channel Two’s “Meet the Press” television show. His public duties on this occasion, it might be assumed, would include defending the prime minister’s decision against the condemnation being heaped upon him by the international community for the 13 Palestinians killed and more than 100 injured in the three-day invasion of the Palestinian Authority’s temporary capital.

The Arab town of Baqa al-Gharbiya (Western Baqa) sits uncomfortably on the Israeli side of the Green Line. The muddy road running through Baqa’s chaotic open-air market ends abruptly at a barbed-wire fence guarded by soldiers. On the other side is the town’s Palestinian mirror image: Baqa al-Sharkiya (Eastern Baqa).

After 12 long months of hearings and the appearance of 349 witnesses, a panel of Israeli judges has offered the first insight into its conclusions about the deaths of 13 Palestinian citizens at the hands of the country’s police force in October 2000.

An elderly British woman held for three days by Israeli soldiers who occupied her apartment building in Ramallah told yesterday of the gunbattles raging from flats on the floors above. Patricia Rantisi, 69, was held prisoner in her home in the West Bank city’s Tireh district with 22 other residents.

Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his security minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, were warned last week by a panel of judges that they are suspected of having acted illegally during its investigations into events at the start of the Intifada. The Or Commission sent both men letters of warning, advising them to obtain legal counsel and prepare for further investigation. Nine of the country’s top police officers and three Israeli-Arab politicians also received letters. The inquiry has the power to recommend criminal prosecutions against anyone it warns. The high number of warnings — a total of 14 — surprised most legal experts.

IsraeliI soldiers were holding a 69-year-old British woman, Patricia Rantisi, at gunpoint in her home in Ramallah last night. An attempt yesterday by the British consulate to reach her to check on her condition failed when its armoured vehicle was forced to turn back because the area had been sealed off.

Adel Kaadan, a 44-year-old Palestinian citizen of Israel, made headlines around the world two years ago when he won a lengthy court battle with his government. After five years of legal argument, the judges ordered that he be allowed to buy a plot of land in one of the hundreds of Israeli communities open only to Jews. His victory was seen by the French news agency, Agence France Presse, as meaning that Arabs could now “live anywhere they choose in the Jewish state.” Human rights groups hailed the Supreme Court ruling as the end of apartheid in Israel.

Crowds of several hundred supporters of prominent Palestinian member of the Israeli Kenesset, Azmi Bishara, converged on the square outside the court building where he is being tried in Nazareth yesterday, waving Palestinian flags. Some wore stickers bearing Bishara’s face and the legend “J’accuse” — a reference to the Dreyfus affair, the trial of a Jewish army officer in 19th century France often cited as an archetypal example of anti-semitism. Bishara, a combative and outspoken figure among the handful of Palestinian Members of Knesset (MKs), is being prosecuted for two speeches — made a year apart — in which he praised resistance to the occupation of Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. If found guilty, he faces up to three years in jail.

Israel’s former prime minister, Ehud Barak, and his security minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, were warned last night by a panel of judges that they are under suspicion of acting illegally during its investigations into events at the start of the intifada. The commission, headed by Justice Theodor Or, sent both men letters advising them to prepare for more investigation. It has powers to recommend prosecutions for those it warns. Mr Barak’s government fell in February last year after his negotiations with the Palestinian leadership failed to reach a peace agreement. His challenger, Ariel Sharon, defeated him by a large margin.

Israeli Tourism Minister Benni Elon has been warned by the Shin Bet security service of a Palestinian plot to murder him, according to a report on Israeli radio last week. The Shin Bet has urged Elon, who has been in the job since November, to move out of his West Bank settlement home. He inherited the portfolio from Rahavam Zeevi, who was killed by gunmen from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in October in retaliation for the assassination of the group’s leader, Abu Ali Mustafa. The elevation of two successive tourism ministers to the top of the Palestinian militants’ hit list has nothing to do with the ministry’s influence on the course of the Intifada — which is marginal, at best.

Fifty-two reservists in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) signed a letter in the press last week saying they would refuse to implement government policies in the occupied territories — or, as they phrased it, “take part in the war for the peace of the settlements.” “We will not continue to fight beyond the Green Line [Israel’s 1967 border with the West Bank] in order to rule, expel, destroy, blockade, assassinate, starve and humiliate an entire people,” they said. The soldiers, emphasising their commitment to Zionism, said they were still prepared to take part in missions to defend Israel. The reservists’ letter has prompted the first national debate about the legitimacy of the occupation — and the methods being used by the army against Palestinians — since the start of the Intifada 16 months ago.

Israel’s tourism minister thinks Gush Katif will prove ideal for the holidaymaker in search of a sun-soaked Mediterranean beach away from the crowds. But there is a drawback: Gush Katif is an illegal settlement in Gaza, protected by barbed wire fences, armed soldiers, military watchtowers and checkpoints.

Like thousands of other Palestinians, Abed Al-Rahman Al-Ahmar tasted the bitter fruits of Israeli occupation during the first Intifada when he was jailed without trial for throwing stones at soldiers. But in the years of the Oslo peace process and now during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, the 34-year-old human rights worker from Bethlehem has been learning an even harsher lesson about Israel’s policy on human rights for Palestinians. Arrested in May last year in Jerusalem, Al-Ahmar has been held in “administrative detention,” Israel’s term for imprisonment without trial or charges, for nine months. The only information his lawyer, Allegra Pacheco, can get from the Shin Bet security service is that he is considered a danger to the Israeli public.

The principle of press freedom was reformulated by Israel last week when it announced to international news organisations that the Palestinian journalists they employ are to be refused both press accreditation and entry into Israel. The tough line was officially admitted only after media groups, including news agencies Reuters and the Associated Press and leading European and American television companies such as the BBC and CNN, protested to the authorities that their Palestinian staff were being denied press cards. The row erupted shortly before the Israeli army’s attempt to silence Voice of Palestine radio by bombing its five-storey building in Ramallah. The station was back on the air a few hours later, transmitting from a secret location.

Until the Intifada began 16 months ago, the Basilica of the Annunciation attracted queues of thousands of pilgrims from around the globe each day. But for the past three months, the peace inside the church has been shattered by pneumatic drills and bulldozers digging in the neighbouring car park, as well as the five-times-a-day call to prayer by the local sheikh using a loudspeaker mounted on a makeshift pulpit of palm leaves.