RAMALLAH, West Bank, 26 April — A Palestinian military court jailed the killers of an Israeli Cabinet minister yesterday in a swift trial at President Yasser Arafat’s tank-ringed compound in Ramallah.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismissed the move, saying he still wanted them extradited for trial in Israel, along with a Palestinian official accused by Israel of trying to smuggle weapons from Iran to Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.

In Washington, a US official said the sentencing by a Palestinian military tribunal of four activists “appears positive” but does not resolve issues over Israel’s siege of Arafat’s headquarters.

A Palestinian Authority statement said the military court, convened in Arafat’s compound, had given jail terms ranging from one to 18 years to four men for their part in Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi’s assassination.

Sharon said the Palestinians must hand over the four men, as well as a Finance Ministry official who Palestinian officials say is under investigation over the arms smuggling charge.

Sharon, who sent tanks to Arafat’s headquarters on March 29 at the start of a West Bank offensive has said he will keep Arafat confined until he hands over the men for trial in Israel. But he told the New York Times in an interview published yesterday that he would consider letting Arafat move to the Gaza Strip, though the wanted men could not go with him.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat rejected Sharon’s proposal to let Arafat leave his besieged headquarters in Ramallah for the Gaza Strip. “We reject this proposal. It goes against all agreements, which say the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are one area,” Erekat told AFP. “Arafat wants to be near Jerusalem and the West Bank,” Erekat said.

In a later development, Israeli forces besieging Arafat’s offices allowed the city governor and his driver to leave the building, officials inside said.

In Bethlehem, nine Palestinian youths and two corpses were brought out of the Church of the Nativity where Israeli forces have besieged Palestinian fighters for the last 23 days.

Coffins containing the bodies of the two men, shot by Israeli soldiers about two weeks ago, were taken away from the church. Nine young men were also seen leaving the shrine, which is ringed by troops. A fourth round of talks aimed at ending the tense standoff at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity wound up yesterday without a breakthrough, a Palestinian negotiator said. “We failed to reach an agreement,” Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser told AFP.

In a stern declaration yesterday, the Council of Europe demanded that Israel withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories and told the Palestinians to stop anti-Israeli attacks. In a resolution adopted after almost five hours of debate, the council’s parliamentary assembly called on both sides in the conflict to uphold human rights and respect international law.

The Non-Aligned Movement meeting in Johannesburg also called on Israel to withdraw its troops from Palestinian territories and end its siege of Arafat.