The New Nation - Internet Edition

As a flock of tourists strode up to the entrance of the Church of the Nativity - the reputed site of Jesus Christ's birth - a Palestinian tour guide moved in for the hard sell."Do you need a guide?" asked Adil Dweib as the visitors marched by him without saying a word. In previous years, Dweib would have pursued the group, but this time he shrugged his shoulders and rejoined a couple of colleagues leaning against a wall. "This year is like 2000," says Dweib - a slight exaggeration perhaps, as the millennium year was a bumper time for tourism in Bethlehem. "Business is good and next year there will be hopefully even more tourists," he adds.

Community and business leaders, shopkeepers and tour guides, all tell you the same thing: the economy is getting better in this Christian pilgrimage centre in the rolling West Bank hills.

During the second Palestinian uprising, which started in September 2000, tourism collapsed.

Israeli military incursions were a regular occurrence and in 2002 there was the siege of the Church of the Nativity in which 39 Palestinian gunmen holed up in the church for more than five weeks.

Most visitors stayed away during this period and some of the shops still bear scars - their signage pocked by bullet holes.