PROVO — Today is the deadline for applications to spend fall semester at Brigham Young University's Jerusalem Center — the first time students will be back at the facility since political unrest forced the school to suspend programs in 2001.

Some 65 BYU students had applied for the 44 open seats and a few more applications were expected to be submitted by the end of the day, said Brent Harker, a spokesman for the LDS Church-owned school.

Harker expects some top-notch students will not be accepted into the program this time around. The study-abroad program in the coming semester is limited to matriculated students who have studied at the Provo campus for at least two years.

While BYU officials suspended student programs at the facility because of security concerns, the Jerusalem Center has remained open for concerts, workshops and tours, Harker said.

When students were last there, 170 students lived in and studied at the center. Fewer students will attend the revived program.

"It's not like scaling back, it's like starting over," Harker said. "We start small and we add to it as we go along."

The U.S. State Department has issued a travel advisory for Americans going to Israel. The department asks people to carefully weigh the necessity of a trip, especially to Gaza and the West Bank, noting that violence is unpredictable between militant pro-Palestine groups and the Israeli Defense Forces.

"The folks who run the Jerusalem Center programs are intimately acquainted with what goes on over there," Harker said. "They know which areas to avoid and which ones are safe. They will make every effort to keep students safe.

"They have a good track record," Harker said. He noted that no one attending classes at the center has been injured in conflict between Israelis and Palestinians since its opening in 1987.

The Jerusalem Center was closed during the Persian Gulf war in 1991. BYU halted student programs again five years ago after sending a group of BYU students back to the United States a month earlier than scheduled, largely because of escalating violence in the Holy Land.

Program officials kept the group inside the center more than a month before sending them home.

The 44 students selected to attend the Jerusalem Center for the fall will earn 15 credit hours studying the Old Testament and New Testament, ancient and modern Middle East studies, and Hebrew and Arabic languages, Harker said.

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E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com