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  • The whole place is real.

  • You go.

  • Merry Christmas, Santa Claus sign.

  • God likes his machine goes some really bad renditions off Christmas carols.

  • Only 10% of Bethlehem's population of question.

  • Everyone here seems to be in the festive combination of Palestinian sounds.

  • Palestinian military are out in force, and the Palestinian president is here paying his respects at the Holy Church of the Nativity Low, which is a cave at the very heart of Christianity.

  • Emotional people crying tears way I don't really consider myself physically religious, come to Bethlehem and go into the grotto of the Church of the Nativity.

  • Midnight Mass on Christmas is something very special.

  • But yeah, it's it's Christmas Day.

  • So Merry Christmas.

  • I'm at the infamous barrier, a massive gray concrete wall that separates Israel from the West Bank.

  • So we go toe Jerusalem, the checkpoint checkpoint.

  • It's they call the Checkpoint 300 nine with a Palestinian Christian called fatty.

  • Who is escorting me?

  • You got a permit to go to Jerusalem so you can travel there?

  • Yes, because it's Christmas time now.

  • Yeah, and I'm Christian.

  • Yeah, s o.

  • They give Christians to goto Jerusalem for ah specific time.

  • Like only for Christmas and then after Christmas.

  • Yeah, I have no permit.

  • I'm not anymore.

  • Israel began building the separation wall in 2002 in response to a Palestinian uprising known as the second Intifada, justified by the Israeli state as an anti terror measure.

  • It has huge implications on everyday life for Palestinians.

  • You grew up before the wall was built.

  • I mean, what's it like being growing up in the shadow of this thing?

  • Like when you see it like this?

  • It's like living in a big prison.

  • It needs only a roof and then it will be a real prison.

  • They say every time.

  • If you ask them why you built this world, they say we want to secure ourselves from Palestinians.

  • We're not.

  • Terrorists are humans.

  • I'm stuck here.

  • You can go anywhere only in your in your city.

  • The only freedom off course way for freedom.

  • Many Palestinians are against making graffiti on the world.

  • Was that because they believe that invented makes making graffiti on the wall?

  • You beautify the world.

  • There's nothing beautiful about that.

  • It's less than a six mile walk to Jerusalem.

  • But first we must pass through Israeli border security way anymore.

  • I just got through the security checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

  • Um, I mean, that was real border, you know, that was going through Apple security scanners.

  • Turns off the full works cameras everywhere you papers and special permits across.

  • Just allowed out.

  • I feel like it.

  • See from here, that's where I've just come from.

  • Andi got no months here and then very obvious stark difference where settlers moved in and taken over.

  • This hill feels like a fortress in the mountains.

  • But the weird thing is, it's not, you know, guessing people's organization.

  • The wall is one single wall around the West Bank, and that's no, that's not what is allowed.

  • Actually, it's you got the settler communities or Jewish villages when you look at it from yeah, And then there's these fragments of war that just block off defied communities.

  • The U.

  • N considers the building of all Jewish settlements in the West Bank illegal, a claim Israel disputes.

  • But as I leave the West Bank, I reached the place at the heart of the controversy held sacred by Christianity, Islam on Judy, where the three religions co exist in less than a square Within these ancient walls, there's a mixture of conflict on cooperation.

  • It's a mosaic of cultures and believes the Jews.

  • This is it.

  • At the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus is believed to have been crucified, the custodian of the front door key is a Muslim.

  • My family start from seventh century, so your family has been in charge of the keys for 1300 years.

  • Why was a Muslim given the key to be neutral between the Christian?

  • The Al Aksa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, is policed by Israeli soldiers, much to the annoyance of many Muslims.

  • Israeli soldiers?

  • What are they meant to be here for protecting the settlers when they are attacking the most.

  • They came here every day.

  • What a day just to make the people are.

  • It's kind of provocation.

  • Just meters away, at the Western Wall, Jews pray the site of their holy Temple, destroyed by the Romans nearly 2000 years ago on dawn, which now stands the Dome of the Rock.

  • If you want a temple to be rebuilt here with that, no involved moving the mosque way are not going to destroy or form or anything.

  • Let's take it's his own home and let him remodel it anyway.

  • The Israeli Defense Force idea or present a list every corner with national service compulsory for all Israeli citizens, defense of the state is a huge part of their national identity.

The whole place is real.

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