Israel has rejected an appeal from the Vatican to end its army's week-old siege of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.
The blockade will continue until Palestinian fighters inside surrendered, Israeli President Mr Moshe Katsav said in a letter to Pope John Paul II.
An Armenian monk was wounded by Israeli gunfire inside the church today and transferred to Hadass hospital in west Jerusalem.
One of the trapped fighters was killed and two Israeli soldiers wounded Monday in an exchange of fire near the church, built on the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.
And a fighter was wounded yesterday as an Israeli bullet ricocheted off a wall in an open space of the complex, according to Palestinian fighters.
Vatican diplomats had put forward a proposal to Israelis and Palestinians to end a standoff at the Church of the Nativity in Christ's birthplace of Bethlehem last week.
According to a Church source, the proposal called for the Palestinians to leave their weapons inside the church complex and for the Israeli army to pull back from the immediate environs for a few hours to let them out.
Some 200 Palestinian gunmen and civilians took refuge in the church earlier this month and have remained holed up inside along with 40 Franciscan monks and four nuns, for nine days. Israeli troops ring the complex, one of the holiest sites in Christendom.
The Vatican has a diplomatic mission in Jerusalem that oversees the Church's work in Israel and the Palestinian territories. It has an embassy to the Jewish state in Jaffa.
AFP
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