There was no sign of Israeli soldiers, who re-entered Bethlehem last month after a suicide bombing attack in Jerusalem killed 11 people. As promised, they pulled their forces back to the outskirts, where rings of barbed wire and checkpoints are still in place. Though Bethlehem's streets hummed with activity, there seemed little expectation that the respite would last for more than a few days.

"They are five minutes outside the city," said the mayor of Bethlehem, Hanna Nasser. "Five minutes."

Bethlehem Gets Christmas Respite With Israel Army Out of Sight
The few who gathered today at Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity said they had come in spite of the year's events, and even the men called upon to give solace to the rest expressed confusion before the relentless run of bad news.

"People come to me and they tell me they are frightened, that the world has forgotten them," said the Rev. Shawki Baterian, a priest at the Church of the Nativity. "I tell them they are right."

Outside, the mood on Bethlehem's streets matched the gray of the skies. There were few of the usual holiday decorations about, and for the first time in memory the Christmas tree that adorns the square was not lit. When the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, the Rev. Michel Sabbah — who is the head of the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land — made his entrance into Manger Square, he was greeted not by tourists with cameras but by demonstrators with signs, most of them demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.…

Violence continued in other parts today, but there was movement on the security front as well. Israeli officials said they had destroyed a tunnel used to smuggle weapons in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza, as well as structures they said were being used by Palestinian militants. Palestinian reports said that the same Israeli operation destroyed 20 homes, leaving many people homeless, a charge confirmed by a United Nations official but denied by the Israeli Army.

In Bethlehem, there were a few signs of hope. For all of the gloom, the prayers and ceremonies continued as they have for centuries. With the winter air creeping inside the Church of the Nativity, Father Baterian and a group of other priests led a procession into its lower reaches, to the very spot where Christ was said to have been born. Afterward, he explained his purpose.

"There is a crisis of hope here, so we pray," Father Baterian said. "We can only hope that our prayers will nurture us, and that they will bring us a miracle of peace."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/25/international/middleeast/25MIDE.html