We were very pleased with the jury's verdict and after talking to the jury we were even more pleased, ... Clearly they understood the statements we were challenging were false.

We can certainly say that those inside are afraid to leave, but I do not think ... that we can say they are being held hostage, ... The Israelis are saying that the religious leaders may leave the compound, but they're afraid to do so because they want to maintain the sanctity of the holy place.

The news that we're getting from those inside is that the situation is really quite desperate now.

It can best be described as a volcano in the Church of the Nativity which is waiting to erupt and it will erupt at any moment ... unless we can manage to mediate a way to meet the urgent humanitarian needs, .

Food, we are told, ran out a couple of days ago. There is water from a well. The sanitary conditions are terrible. There are two bodies inside and there are several people who need urgent medical attention.

He asked me if I was really 14, I said yeah, really, just curious. Do you like older guys? I think older guys are cool.

Given that English as a second language classes are pretty hard to come by unless you've got money, it's sort of inevitable that children of recent immigrants who don't speak English are a huge fount of information about American culture.

You have a group of people in there who are possibly responsible for terrorist activities, according to the Israeli side, ... and at the same time you have many innocent civilians and religious people in there, and they're all mixed up together in a place which is designed for worship and not for living.