THE MIDDLE EAST: The scent of incense mixed with white spirit yesterday as worshippers crowded into Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity to celebrate their liturgies for the first time since a five-week siege ended.
"We needed to stage a reconsecration Mass because this church had turned into a mosque for nearly 40 days," said Father Nerses Krozian of the Armenian Orthodox Church as some 300 of his congregation gathered in the sixth-century basilica.
Two separate liturgies were celebrated yesterday in the church complex that had witnessed a bloody 39-day standoff between armed Palestinians and Israeli troops that ended on Friday with the help of intense international mediation.
The reconsecration of the Church of the Nativity was celebrated by Patriarch Irineos I of the Greek Orthodox Church in a sombre ceremony held amid the gilded splendour of a basilica built on the spot where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born.
But echoes of the tense siege hung over yesterday's liturgy. The smells of washing liquids permeated the air after church workers sponged down the basilica's stone floor and walls to erase graffiti and wash away refuse left behind by the hundreds of people who had been stranded inside. The buildings were left littered with clothes, garbage, and mattresses. Exchanges of gunfire also caused substantial damage to the Greek Orthodox monastery in the complex.
In the adjoining Saint Catherine's Church, Pope John Paul's special envoy, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray from France, said Mass for a thousand people as bells rang out again across the city.
"Shalom, Salaam," Cardinal Etchegaray said, using the Hebrew and Arabic words for "peace" at the start of the ceremony, to rapturous applause from the crowd.
Still, heated political divides that have engulfed the region made their presence felt yesterday as the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem labelled Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories as the "root of evil" of the current conflict.
"As long as the root of evil is there, the violence will stay," Patriarch Michel Sabbah told the Mass. "The root of evil is the Israeli occupation." He condemned the lack of "courage" displayed by the international community throughout the 19-month Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has left more than 2,000 people dead.
"We need for the two partners, Israel and the Palestinians, to show their courage and pull out the roots of evil and put an end to the occupation", the Patriarch said.
With the end of the siege, Israel also lifted its curfew of Bethlehem, leaving the dazed civilians to the massive task of rebuilding their shattered town. The curfew had been lifted only twice a week, for a few hours at a time, to allow starving families to buy some provisions.
And amid the piles of refuse and smashed shop fronts, the first signs of regular life returned to the damaged city as fruit and vegetable sellers rushed to set up their stalls.
Bulldozers worked nearby, clearing away the rubbish outside the church complex.
On entering Bethlehem, Israeli soldiers fired thousand of rounds of bullets for several hours, and blew up hundreds of doors in their search operation.
"According to our first estimates, damage to the streets, pavements, electricity, traffic lights and public buildings runs to at least five million dollars," the Mayor of Bethlehem, Mr Hanna Nasser, said.