Bethlehem, West Bank ? Two Palestinians inside the Church of the Nativity compound were shot Wednesday and one of them died as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators gathered next door for a second round of talks to end the standoff at one of Christianity’s holiest sites.

Secretary of State Colin Powell told Congress he had no evidence of an Israeli massacre of Palestinians at the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank.

One of two unidentified Palestinians surrenders to Israeli soldiers at the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. The two men were wearing civilian clothes but were members of the police force, according to a Palestinian journalist who recognized them Wednesday.

Early today, Israeli tanks briefly entered the city of Hebron. According to witnesses at least four Palestinians were wounded and one was killed. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

In Washington, Powell has sought to mend deep divisions between Israel and the United Nations over the composition of a U.N. team dispatched to investigate the actions of Israeli troops in the camp, where Palestinians claim there was a massacre.

“Clearly, innocent lives may well have been lost,” Powell testified. But, he said, “I have no evidence of mass graves. I see no evidence that would support a massacre took place.”

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has ordered the team to arrive by Saturday in the Middle East. But Israel has balked, saying it wants the mission to include people with military and anti-terrorism experience. Israel has not said what it will do if it is not added to the team.

Annan agreed to Israel’s request for a meeting today at U.N. headquarters, where an Israeli delegation from Jerusalem will tell U.N. officials of their concerns.

But the secretary-general brushed aside Israel’s demand for a delay and gave the go-ahead for the three-member team and its advisers to gather in Geneva, where they had a first meeting on Wednesday.

At the request of Arab nations, the U.N. Security Council had consultations late Wednesday to discuss a draft resolution requesting Israel’s full cooperation with the fact-finding commission and demanding an end to the Israeli military sieges of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem and of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s compound in Ramallah.

The trouble Wednesday at the church, built over a grotto where Christian tradition holds Jesus was born, began about dawn, when a Palestinian was shot and seriously wounded by an Israeli sniper. The Palestinian was standing by a window inside the church, the army and Palestinian witnesses said. He was armed, according to the Israeli army, and was evacuated to a Jerusalem hospital.

A few hours later, two Palestinians surrendered, walking out of the church with hands up and turning themselves over to Israeli soldiers. The two men were wearing civilian clothes but were Palestinian police. The two men said they were ill.

The Palestinian who died was hit in shooting that erupted about 5 p.m., as the Israeli and Palestinian delegations were arriving to start the second day of negotiations at the peace center next to the church.

Afterward, one of the Palestinians negotiators and a priest emerged from the church, carrying a badly wounded man on a stretcher. At one point, the bloodied man fell to the ground. He was taken to a Jerusalem hospital but died a short time later, the hospital said.