Bethlehem militants ponder life in Gaza

The exiles refuse blame for accepting the deal

By Barbara Plett BBC correspondent in Gaza

Waves wash up the sandy beach on the incoming tide, edging closer to Mazen Hussein's shiny new shoes.

Many Palestinians accuse their leadership of selling them out

The seashore in the Gaza Strip is a welcome change from the dirt and hunger at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Mazen is one of 26 men banished to this isolated corner of the Palestinian territories as part of a deal to end a five-week standoff between Israel and the militants who took refuge in the church to escape the army's recent invasion of Bethlehem.

He is happy to be alive.

"When I entered my hotel room I thanked God that I had returned to normal life," he says.

"I remembered my family and friends and I prayed that my life in Gaza would be as good as the life I had in Bethlehem before the siege."

'Selling out'

Mazen is one of Yasser Arafat's policemen who joined the militias fighting Israel.

By accepting this deal the Palestinian Authority committed a very real mistake against the Palestinian people

Human rights activist Raji Sourani

He and the other gunmen are viewed in Gaza as freedom fighters, not terrorists.

They have been put up at hotels and given money to buy new wardrobes.

This is not exactly the punishment the Israelis had in mind for men it considers a threat to the state.

But the deal has also angered many Palestinians, who accuse their leadership of selling out.

"By accepting this deal the Palestinian Authority committed a very real mistake against the Palestinian people," says human rights activist Raji Sourani.

"It accepted the principle of deportation for the Palestinian citizens, those who carry out resistance in the occupied territories."

Traumatic memories

The expulsion revived traumatic memories for Palestinians, many of whom were turned into refugees in 1948 by the creation of the state of Israel, and again in 1967 when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The deportation of 13 additional Palestinian gunmen caused controversy

Although the 26 are still in Palestinian areas, they are unable to leave Gaza and travel to their homes in the West Bank some 150km (93 miles) away.

Mr Sourani called it "forced internal transfer".

But the most controversial part of the agreement was the deportation of 13 of the gunmen to Cyprus en route to Europe, something forbidden by the fourth Geneva Convention governing the behaviour of an occupying power.

Disagreeing with most of the world, Israel argues the Conventions do not apply to the West Bank and Gaza because these are disputed, not occupied areas.

'Bad decision'

At any rate, the exiles refuse to be blamed for accepting the deal.

We wanted the international community to solve the refugee problem, not to accept an Israeli policy of deportation

Exiled militant Mazen Hussein

Under the green canopy of a hotel garden, three more of the men describe life under siege in the church.

They ate one meal a day, they say, in the end boiling the leaves of lemon trees and any other plants they could find.

"The man who is in his home, puts his head on a soft bed, and has food and cigarettes, can say anything he wants," says Samed Khalil.

"But we didn't have food, we didn't have beds, we didn't have medicine for the injured."

"I consider the deal a bad decision," says Ra'ed Abayat.

"But there was only a bad and a worse option. We agreed to the bad option. We had to in order to free Bethlehem."

Crucial dilemma

When they were released, so was the rest of the town, under siege for as long as the church.

That is one reason why Yasser Arafat gave in to pressure from the Vatican, the Americans, and the Europeans.

But it is the first time in a long history of dispossession that Palestinians have been deported with his blessing, and the fallout illustrates his crucial dilemma: when he tries to please his people, he is often condemned by the West.

But when he tries to please outside powers, he alienates his people.

On the beach, however, one loyalist chooses to direct his criticism elsewhere.

"We wanted the international community to solve the refugee problem," says Mazen, "not to accept an Israeli policy of deportation."