• First ever Palestinian marathon: Running to change West Bank's image

    Ammar Awad / Reuters

    Racers reach the finish line of the first Palestinian marathon in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Sunday.

    By Paul Goldman, Producer, NBC News

    BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Jesus' traditional birthplace has long been linked to tensions between Israel and the Palestinians. On Sunday, around 650 athletes took a step towards transforming Bethlehem's modern image by running in the first official Palestinian marathon.

    “It’s a strange site to see people run in the West Bank,” said runner Dina Khuri, 21, from Beit Sahour.  “Usually when people run here it has to do with violence, but this time it’s for fun."

    Courtesy Dina Khouri

    Dina Khouri, left, took part in an historic marathon in the West Bank on Sunday.

    Security was tight in the wake of the Boston attacks that killed three and injured more than 170 on Monday. Before the event, organizers said they were "deeply saddened by the news from Boston."

    For George Zeidan from Jerusalem, the marathon was not only about fitness.

    "Sports (are) my inspiration and my way of identifying myself," he wrote in a blog posted on the marathon website before the race. "I am running for the freedom of Palestine and my people.  I am running to inform everybody that we Palestinians are just like everyone else, we run, dance, sing, play, jump, and have fun, not only that but we are also good at it."

    The race started and finished at the Church of the Nativity, thought to be the oldest continuously operating Christian church, and took runners in four loops around Bethlehem. Competitors ran through the Al Ayda and Dheisheh camps, which house 17,700 Palestinian refugees.

    The participants from 28 countries passed the barrier separating the West Bank and Israel, which Israelis call the separation wall and Palestinians refer to as the apartheid wall.  The turn-around point was an Israeli Army checkpoint on the road leading to Jerusalem.   

    Palestinians Abed El Naser Awajneh and Christine Gebler won the men and women's races, respectively, according to organizers.  

    Organizer Signe Fischer said that the main message behind holding the race was to emphasize the importance of freedom of movement. 

    “The situation here is of stalemate and this marathon is a positive message for people to do something to change things," she said.

    While the United Nations organized a marathon in the Hamas-controlled enclave of Gaza in May, 2011, Sunday's race was the first Palestinian marathon. The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority gained non-member state status for Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly in November, 2012.  

    Alongside growing tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, who have been struggling for years to establish an independent state, have come growing restrictions on their ability to travel into Israel and Gaza. 

    Earlier in the week Israelis refused to allow some 20 runners from Gaza to travel to the race. Gaza residents can only go to the West Bank for "exceptional humanitarian reasons with an emphasis on urgent medical cases," Israeli officials were quoted with saying. 

    This was likely a big blow to Gaza resident Nader Al-Masri who represented Palestine in the 5,000-meter race at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Related: 

    London marathon kicks off with a moment of silence

    'We will fight on': London Marathon competitors, spectators defy security fears

  • Obama wraps up Holy Land visit at Bethlehem church after Holocaust tribute

    Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

    U.S. President Barack Obama and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas walk in the Church of the Nativity during their visit to the West Bank city of Bethlehem on March 22, 2013.

    Jason Reed / Reuters

    Obama meets Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III (3rd left) during a tour of the Church of the Nativity.

    Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

    Obama walks out of the Hall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.

    By Matt Spetalnick and Ali Sawafta, Reuters

    President Barack Obama made a pilgrimage on Friday to Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus.

    At the Church of the Nativity, Obama ducked to enter through its small Door of Humility. Manger Square, the plaza in front of the church, was almost deserted except for security personnel.

    Earlier, Obama visited Israel's most powerful national symbols, paying homage at the Holocaust memorial and the graves of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, and Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister assassinated in 1995 by an extremist Jew over peace moves with the Palestinians.

    Wearing a Jewish skullcap, Obama rekindled an eternal flame at the Yad Vashem memorial next to a stone slab above ashes recovered from Nazi extermination camps after World War Two.

    "We have a choice to acquiesce to evil or make real our solemn vow - never again," Obama said.

    Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images

    Obama tours the Hall of Names at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, alongside Avner Shalev (right), Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Uriel Sinai / Getty Images

    Obama pays his respects in the Hall of Remembrance at Yad Vashem after Marines laid a wreath on his behalf.

    Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

    Obama listens to Netanyahu during their visit to the Children's Memorial at Yad Vashem.

    Jason Reed / Reuters

    Obama walks with Rabbi Israel Meir Lau in the Hall of Remembrance at Yad Vashem.

    Previously on PhotoBlog: Obama begins first official trip to Israel

  • Obama visits a Bethlehem in midst of change, Islamization

    Ammar Awad / Reuters

    Christian worshipers visit the Church of the Nativity, revered as the site of Jesus' birth, in the Bethlehem on March 14. Despite the city's importance to Christianity, practitioners are a small minority there.

    By Martin Fletcher, Correspondent, NBC News

    News analysis

    JERUSALEM — Bethlehem was a late addition to President Barack Obama’s schedule in Israel and the West Bank, and it focuses attention on another of the region’s appellations: the Holy Land.

    The Church of the Nativity on Manger Square may be close to the Christian president’s heart, even while he has taken great care to talk of the common bonds that unite the monotheistic religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

    Nasser Shiyoukhi / AP, file

    Palestinian Muslims take part in Friday noon prayers in Manger Square, outside the Church of Nativity, traditionally believed by Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus.

    But as throughout his trip, what Obama does not see in the town may tell more than what he does. Bethlehem is a mirror of the region, where rapid and relentless change threatens Christians themselves. 

    The American leader will be warmly welcomed officially, but on the streets the story is different. Bethlehem has been seething ever since it was announced that Obama would visit. Palestinian political activists were furious when the municipality removed a statue in Manger Square that showed Palestine without Israel and fought contractors to keep it in place. 

    Obama posters have been defaced, American flags burned and activists set up a protest tent on the edge of town to show how Israel can build homes there but Palestinians can’t.

    What Obama will not be able to avoid on the 10-minute drive from Jerusalem is the wall, more than 20 feet high, that cuts Bethlehem off from Jerusalem.  As he is driven through the gate into Bethlehem — a gigantic roadblock cut into the concrete security barrier —and past the walls he will read the graffiti cursing Israel and calling for a Palestinian state. 

    Religion and politics here are sometimes indistinguishable.

    Although Bethlehem is probably the most famous Christian place-name, celebrated in hymn and prayer, today it is no longer a Christian town. In 1950, 80 percent of the population was Christian. Today, 80 percent is Muslim. There are far more mosques than churches.

    The image that best describes this is just on the other side of Manger Square from the Church of the Nativity, venerated by Christians as the site where Jesus was born. The main mosque, the Mosque of Omar, stands there, the muezzin’s call to prayer echoes across the rooftops, competing with the peel of the bells from the church across the square.   

    President Barack Obama on Thursday urged the Israeli people to put themselves in the shoes of Palestinians and recognize their "right to self-determination, their right to justice." NBC's Chuck Todd reports.

    So many of the faithful answer its call that at the week’s main prayers, Friday midday, they don’t all fit in the mosque and flow out into Manger Square, covering part of it.

    The cause is partly a higher birth rate among Muslims than Christians, according to figures from the Palestinian and Israeli statistics bureaus. Figures from the agencies show that Muslim women in the West Bank were likely to have 3.8 children during their lifetimes, compared with 2.1 for Israeli Christians. Also it is partly because Christians seek a better life far away from the turbulent struggle between Jews and Arabs for control of their land. Although many Christians say this is their struggle too, the proportion of people emigrating is much higher among Christians than Muslims or Jews. Only about 2 percent of the region's population today is Christian.

    Obama’s visit though will not focus attention solely on the birthplace of Jesus but on the plight of Christians across the whole Middle East. 

    A report last year by the British think tank Civitas said that Christianity was at risk of being wiped out in the biblical heartland because of "Islamic oppression" and estimated that up to two-thirds of Christians had emigrated or been killed in the past century. They continue to be particularly persecuted in predominantly Muslim countries, not only in the Middle East but worldwide, according to the study.

    Obama is on a mission to help bring peace to the Holy Land and may indeed find a moment of personal peace and prayer in the Grotto of the Nativity beneath the stone floor of the church. If he has any time to reflect at all, it must be that peace here is still a distant dream worth pursuing.

    Martin Fletcher is the author of "The List,""Breaking News" and "Walking Israel."

    Related:

    'Not welcome': Disappointment greets Obama on West Bank visit

    'People turned on Christians': Persecuted Iraqi minority reflects on life after Saddam

    On the Brink: Palestinians, Israelis lukewarm on visit

  • 'Like Times Square at New Year's': Pilgrims mark Christmas in Bethlehem

    At midnight mass in the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, the cradle of Christianity, the message was of peace, love and goodwill to all mankind. NBC's Martin Fletcher reports.

    By The Associated Press

    Pilgrims and locals celebrated Christmas Day on Tuesday in the ancient Bethlehem church where tradition holds Jesus was born, candles illuminating the sacred site and the joyous sound of prayer filling its overflowing halls.

    Overcast skies and a cold wind didn't dampen the spirits of worshippers who came dressed in holiday finery and the traditional attire of foreign lands to mark the holy day in this biblical West Bank town. Bells pealed and long lines formed inside the fourth-century Church of the Nativity complex as Christian faithful waited eagerly to see the grotto that is Jesus' traditional birthplace.

    Duncan Hardock, 24, a writer from MacLean, Va., traveled to Bethlehem from the republic of Georgia, where he had been teaching English. After passing through the separation barrier Israel built to ward off West Bank attackers, he walked to Bethlehem's Manger Square where the church stands.


    "I feel we got to see both sides of Bethlehem in a really short period of time," Hardock said. "On our walk from the wall, we got to see the lonesome, closed side of Bethlehem ... But the moment we got into town, we're suddenly in the middle of the party."

    Bethlehem lies 6 miles south of Jerusalem. Entry to the city is controlled by Israel, which occupied the West Bank in 1967.

    Hardock's girlfriend, 22-year-old Jennifer Gemmell of Longmont, Colorado, compared the festive spirit in Manger Square on Christmas Eve, saying "it's like being at Times Square at New Year's."

    Boy's Christmas wish: Adoption of little brother caught in US-Russia spat

    The cavernous church was unable to hold all the worshippers who had hoped to celebrate Christmas Day Mass inside. A loudspeaker outside the church broadcast the service to the hundreds in the square who could not pack inside.

    Slideshow: Christmas around the world

    Paul J. Richards / AFP - Getty Images

    In churches and bus stations, on water skis and bicycles, people from the Middle East to middle America celebrate Christmas.

    Launch slideshow

    Pope's prayer for peace
    Tourists in the square posed for pictures as vendors hawked olive wood rosaries, nativity scenes, corn on the cob, roasted nuts, tea and coffee.

    An official from the Palestinian tourism ministry predicted 10,000 foreigners would visit Bethlehem on Christmas Day and said 15,000 visited on Christmas Eve — up 20 percent from a year earlier. The official, Rula Maia'a, attributed the rise in part to the Church of the Nativity's classification earlier this year as a U.N. World Heritage Site.

    Christians from Israel — Arab citizens and others — also boosted the number of visitors.

    Germany's latest big export: Christmas markets

    On Christmas Eve, thousands of Christians from all over the world packed the square, which was awash in light, resplendent with decorations and adorned by a lavishly decorated, 55-foot fir tree. Their Palestinian hosts, who welcome this holiday as the high point of their city's year, were especially joyous this season, proud of the United Nations' recognition of an independent state of Palestine just last month.

    On Monday evening, Pope Benedict XVI prayed that Israelis and Palestinians live in peace and freedom, and asked the faithful to pray for strife-torn Syria as well as Lebanon and Iraq.

    He urged people to reflect upon what they find time for in their busy, technology-driven lives.

    A family's Christmas wish: Healthy heart for girl

    "The great moral question of our attitude toward the homeless, toward refugees and migrants takes on a deeper dimension: Do we really have room for God when he seeks to enter under our roof? Do we have time and space for him?" the pope said.

    "The faster we can move, the more efficient our time-saving appliances become, the less time we have. And God? The question of God never seems urgent," Benedict lamented.

    Later Tuesday, the world's Christmas focus will shift to Vatican City, where the pope will deliver his traditional "Urbi et Orbi" speech — Latin for "to the city and the world" — from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica to thousands of pilgrims, tourists and Romans gathered in the piazza below.

    More world stories from NBC News:

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    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Christians in the Biblical town of Bethlehem prepare for Christmas

    Ammar Awad / Reuters

    A worshipper prays in the Church of the Nativity, the site revered as the birthplace of Jesus, ahead of Christmas in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Dec. 21, 2012.

    Jim Hollander / EPA

    Pilgrims from Italy join a procession through the Church of the Nativity down into the 'Grotto,' traditionally accepted as the birthplace of Jesus Christ, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Dec. 21. The church is one of the oldest in the world and pilgrims, tourists and Christian faithful are flocking to the town where Jesus was born in the lead-up to the Christmas festivities.

    Mohamad Torokman / Reuters

    Palestinians surround a cart carrying a wooden statue of baby Jesus before a march in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Dec. 20, 2012.

    Slideshow: Holiday season lights up

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  • Abed Al Hashlamoun / EPA

    UNESCO grants heritage status to Bethlehem

    A Greek Orthodox sweeps in the Church of the Nativity in the biblical West Bank city of Bethlehem on June 28, 2012. UNESCO voted to grant world heritage status to the Church of the Nativity. The declaration by UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization covers the West Bank church, venerated by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus, and the surrounding route taken by religious pilgrims.

    Read more here