The troops were airlifted into the city and met disorganized Palestinian resistance. Israeli Air Force helicopters landed the force half an hour too late. When the force arrived, the wanted persons were already there. Dozens of militants, Fatah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Palestinian Security Forces men fled into the church to fortify, along with some 200 monks and other Palestinians who arrived at the site for different reasons, whom Israel claimed were held as hostages by the gunmen, an argument denied by Giacomo Bini Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, who stated: