JERUSALEM (AP) - The situation in the besieged Church of the Nativity compound in Bethlehem is getting steadily worse, with no end in sight to the three-week standoff, an envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury said Monday.
"There is no food, the sanitary conditions are terrible and some of people are sick or wounded," Canon Andrew White said.
Three weeks ago, armed Palestinians fleeing from Israeli troops shot open the locks of a nearby Franciscan monastery, and broke into the church compound. Israeli tanks and snipers have surrounded the compound. The church stands on a grotto where Christians believe Jesus was born.
The Israeli army says the armed Palestinians number about 230 and include some militants wanted for killing Israeli civilians or soldiers. There are also 35 priests, monks and nuns and about 50 unarmed Palestinian civilians.
Israel has called on the armed Palestinians to surrender and accused them of holding the clergy and the Palestinian civilians as hostages. Clergymen have denied they are hostages.
Also Monday, the Israeli army seized government-issued press cards from 17 foreign and Palestinian journalists covering the standoff.
The journalists were stopped about 400 yards from Manger Square and the church compound. An army officer told the journalists they were in a restricted area and insisted they turn over their press cards. The army did not produce any document backing up the claim that the area was restricted, as required by law.
The reporters and cameramen were from The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France Presse, the British Broadcasting Corp., ABC, the ARD network of Germany, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television station and a Spanish journalist.
There are pressures on the clergy and civilians from different sides, said White, who was sent by Anglican Archbishop George Carey to help find a solution. Carey is spiritual head of the Church of England, established in 1534 when King Henry VIII broke from the Roman church over the pope's refusal to grant him an annulment.
"Yesterday, the Israelis put in ladders to help people get out and that was how five people managed to leave," White said. Two of them were civilians, two were Palestinian police and one was a member of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's presidential guard.
"The Israelis have said the clergy can leave but the church leaders said they wouldn't because they must stay to preserve the sanctity of the place, which was violated when weapons were brought into the church," White said.
In Rome, the Franciscan Order expressed "dismay" over the cutting of the telephone lines to the monastery in the church compound and asked Israel to restore them. At a meeting with the Israeli ambassador to the Vatican, the Order said there was "grave danger in losing all contact ... with the friars and nuns who are living under dramatic physical and psychological conditions."
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Yaffa Ben-Ari said the army has allowed deliveries of food to the church. The army had no immediate reaction.
White said he was concerned about the possibility that the bodies of two Muslims that are in the church compound might be buried there, because Muslims might then claim access to the church. The two Muslims were killed in exchanges of fire with the Israelis.
"What happened in Nazareth is a very good example of what could happen if things were to go wrong," White said.
In Nazareth, the town of Jesus' boyhood, Muslims have laid claim to land just outside the Basilica of the Annunciation because a Muslim sage is buried nearby.
On Sunday, Pope John Paul II, lamenting that one of Christianity's holiest shrines had become the site of "clashes, blackmail and insupportable exchanges and accusations," urged Israel and the Palestinians to make peace.