Thousands of pilgrims and dignitaries crowded into Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity for a Christmas Mass, where Latin Patriarch Fuad al-Tuwal urged visitors to return home bearing a message of peace for the Holy Land.
Entertaining crowds outside, bagpipers played carols and whirling dervishes danced, unfurling giant white skirts embroidered with the word peace in various languages.
Some 15,000 visitors packed into the stone flagged square opposite the small Door of Humility where pilgrims stoop to enter the multi-denominational church, built above the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.
PHOTO: AFP
While much of North America and Europe were gripped in winter’s icy embrace, visitors to Bethlehem were buying chilled fruit juice in Manger Square and stripping off sweaters in the mild weather.
“It’s about 20 degrees [C] and it’s a little hard to get that Christmas feeling I’m used to having,” said Phillip Well, 22, from Germany.
Some tourists were bemused by the scene.
“I’m not used to seeing marching bands and scout troops do the Christmas festivities, but it’s entertaining,” said 40-year-old Vijey Raghavan, of San Francisco, California.
Christmas in Bethlehem has its incongruous elements — the troops of Palestinian boy scouts who wear kilts and play bagpipes in one of the town’s holiday traditions, for example, or the inflatable Santa Clauses hanging from church pillars and storefronts looking out of place and overdressed in this town with not a snowflake in sight.
Inside the church at midnight mass, monks kept the celebrations traditional with Christmas hymns and al-Tuwal delivered a special Christmas message in six different languages, including Arabic.
Likening modern-day pilgrims to the shepherds who harkened the angel’s message of Jesus’ birth, al-Tuwal extended blessings of reconciliation and hope to families worldwide.
“You can take back with you the desire for peace and work for peace — peace in the Holy Land where the prince of peace was born. And peace to all the world for men and women of goodwill,” he said.
“The wish that we most want, we most hope for, is not coming. We want peace,” Twal had said earlier after he passed into Bethlehem in a traditional holiday procession from Jerusalem.
Twal and his convoy entered Palestinian-controlled territory through a massive steel gate in Israel’s heavily guarded West Bank separation barrier, escorted by Israeli soldiers and police in jeeps.
Tourism in Bethlehem has picked up in the past few years, after collapsing during the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, which erupted in 2000. Hotels expect a 60 to 70 percent rise in business this year.
Still, many locals say development is hindered by elaborate security arrangements Israel has put in place to keep Palestinian attackers out, including the 8m-high separation barrier. Visitors and local people cannot escape the sight of the wall but they were not allowing it to dampen the Christmas spirit.
“It’s safe, it’s warm, it’s a happy time. It’s good for visitors to see the good things too,” 16-year-old Bethlehem resident Reem Mohammad said.
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