PROVO — Brigham Young University announced Friday that students will return this fall to the school's Jerusalem Center for the first time since 2000.

A statement issued by BYU officials says student programs at the Center for Near Eastern Studies in Jerusalem will resume on a limited basis.

The initial program will be limited to students who have been attending the Provo school for at least two years.

The decision to hold fall-semester classes at the center, located in East Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives, was made after consulting with government and LDS Church leaders.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns and operates BYU.

"Future programs will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis with due consideration to the political and security environments in the region," says the statement.

BYU sent 174 students home early from a semester at the center in November 2000 after they had been sequestered inside the building for more than a month due to violence in the city's streets.

As a result of the unrest, student programs were suspended.

However, the Jerusalem Center remained open, hosting concerts, workshops, tours and visitors.

Students accepted for the fall 2006 program will live at the Jerusalem Center and travel to Biblical and historical sites in Israel. Classes will cover ancient and modern Near Eastern history, modern Near Eastern languages and the Old and New Testaments.

The U.S. State Department has issued a travel advisory asking that U.S. citizens consider carefully the necessity of travel to the area.

Application materials will be available June 16.

The Jerusalem Center's Provo office will begin taking applications June 26.

All qualified applications received between June 26 and July 7 will be given equal consideration for positions in the fall 2006 program.

Before student programs shut down at the Jerusalem Center, BYU was the American university with the most students studying abroad. The center had hosted 37 percent of those students, or 820 per year.

BYU no longer ranks in the top 10, according to an Open Doors study released in November by the Institute for International Education.