Date: 14 / 05 / 2009  Time:  12:10
Bethlehem – Ma’an –

Some 50,000 pilgrims, well-wishers, and onlookers attended mass with Pope Benedict XVI at the Mount of the Precipice in Nazareth, a predominantly Palestinian town in northern Israel on Thursday morning.

The Israeli occupation government deployed some 5,000 police officers throughout the city and the sites the pontiff will visit. In the afternoon Benedict XVI will meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu, visit the Church of the Annunciation, the site where, it is believed, the angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary she would give birth to the son of God.

The Mount of the Precipice is where the Bible says a mob attempted to throw Jesus off a cliff.

While in Nazareth the pope met with the Bishop of the Catholic community in the Galilee region, Elias Shakur, according to the newspaper Haaretz.

Shakur told the pontiff, according to Haaretz, of the Christian residents of two northern Galilee villages who have been trying to return home since they were expelled by the advancing Israeli army in 1948. He asked the pope to work toward the residents' return to their villages.

The right of return for Palestinian refugees was also a major theme of Benedict’s visit to the West Bank city of Bethlehem, where he visited crowded Aida Refugee Camp and delivered a speech in the shadow of Israel’s separation wall. The camp’s residents are also refugees who were expelled from their land at the creation of Israel in 1948.

“Towering over us as we gather here this afternoon is a stark reminder of the stalemate of relations between Israelis and Palestinians seem to have reached – the wall,” said Benedict.