Pilgrims crowd Bethlehem on warm Christmas eve

WEST BANK: 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 church, built above the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.

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. BETHLEHEM, Friday, Reuters