HIGHLIGHTS: Rome Wants Sufficient Details Before Allowing Deportees Into Country||Withdrawal From Bethlehem Timed to Coincide With BushSharon Talks at White House||Occupation Troops Invade Tulkarm & Raid Rafah Refugee Camp Killing a 17-yerar old Youth. ||STORY: Complaining that his country has been treated arrogantly in an intolerable way, a senior Italian government official said his country won't receive 13 exiled Palestinians as outlined in a Palestinian-Israeli tentative agreement to end the 36-day old siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The official demanded that the parties to the accord would have to forward what he called sufficient details. (Read photo caption)

After intensive talks brokered by U.S. and European Union officials, the Palestinians agreed that 13 militants holed up inside the Church would be sent to Egypt and then to exile in Italy.

Another 26 would be transferred to the Gaza Strip.

Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser said "logistical measures" remained to be resolved but that the siege would be lifted by sunset.

Also in Bethlehem, occupation army officers made clear the siege would soon be over, smoothing the way for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's upcoming talks in Washington with President Bush

Bush has demanded a full withdrawal from Palestinian-ruled areas, an Arab condition for attending a peace conference that world powers want held to seek an end to a 19-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

TOLKARM INVADED, RAFAH REFUGEE CAMP RAIDED

Progress toward resolving the siege at the church also coincided with an incursion by Israeli tanks in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, where the occupation army said it arrested 30 wanted militants.

Israeli occupation forces also launched a raid into the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza. Witnesses said troops shot dead a 17-year-old youth.

PHOTO CAPTION

The Catholic leader of the Church of the Nativity, another priest (R) and one of the Palestinian negotiators, Anton Salman (C), walk toward a group of Israeli soldiers at Manger Square in Bethlehem, early May 7, 2002. A deal was struck on Tuesday to end a month-long standoff between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants holed up inside Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, Palestinian sources said. REUTERS/Oleg Popov