A legacy from the heart of Bethlehem

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PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS WEB SITE HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED SINCE JULY 2006 AND THEREFORE THIS SECTION IS INCOMPLETE. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THIS INCONVENIENCE.

First (lower) pool of the Solomon pools built with an area of 9,884 square meters, average length of 190 meters, average width of 62 meters, average depth of 20 meters and a perimeter of 474 meters.

Second (middle) pool of the Solomon pools built with an area of 8,200 square meters, average length of 134 meters, average width of 67 meters, average depth of 15 meters and a perimeter of 392 meters.

Helen, mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, visited Bethlehem and commissioned the Church of Nativity.

Caliph Omar bin el Khattab visited Bethlehem and prayed in the Church of Nativity.

Third (upper) pool of the Solomon pools built with an area of 7,930 square meters, length of 116 meters, width of 68 meters, average depth of 10 meters and a perimeter of 371 meters.

Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent commissioned major improvements of the Solomon pools, their canals, and sources of water reaching Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

December 24: First live broadcast of the traditional midnight Christmas Mass from the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, by the BBC World Service.

Establishment of the Caritas Baby Hospital by Father Ernest Schnidrig from Germany and Dr. Anton Dabdoub from Bethlehem.

December: First traffic lights installed in Bethlehem at the Bab-Zqaq (junction connecting Jerusalem Hebron road north to south with Beit Jala's to the west and Paul VI street towards Bethlehem old city to the east). The traffic lights were operational from early December until mid-December (merely two weeks) when the Israeli occupying forces, at the beginning of the first Intifada, ordered them stopped because theses traffic lights, the Israeli occupying forces claimed then, threatened the lives of settlers coming from Jerusalem in the north and passing through Bethlehem to go to the southern settlements in the environs of Bethlehem and Hebron. This threat they explained was caused by the settlers having to wait at the traffic lights which gave Palestinians the reason to attack the settlers with stones or fire bombs.

The traffic lights were restored in 1995 and three more traffic lights at major junctions were added when the Palestinian authority took control of the city. The October 2001 first heavy Israeli military incursion of the city during the second Intifada, however, completely destroyed all the city's traffic lights once more. The Bab Zqaq traffic lights were re-restored and became operational once more in February 2006.

December 24: Bethlehem was handed over to the Palestinian Authority as part of the Oslo accord agreements signed and agreed on by Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

December 24: First traditional midnight Christmas Mass held at the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem was attended by Palestinian President Yaser Arafat.

March 22: His Holiness Pope "John-Paul II" visited Bethlehem and held Holy Mass in Manger Square before paying visit to the Dheisheh Palestinian refugee camp, south of Bethlehem.

November 9: Launch of the Open Bethlehem Project which aims at marketing and promoting Bethlehem internationally as a tourist destination after 5 years of economic stagnation.

February: The Bab-Zqaq traffic lights were re-restored and became operational once more in February 2006 after having been destroyed during the October 2001 Israeli military incursion and before that in December 1987 two weeks after they had been installed in the city for the first time.

February 24: The Americans' Friends Services Committee (AFSC), a Noble Prize winner in human rights, nominates Ghassan Andoni from Beit Sahour and Jeff Helper for the 2006 Noble Peace Prize. Professor Andoni, who is a Physics lecturer at Bir Zeit University, established the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement in 1988 and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Professor Helper is an Anthropologist and an activist against the Vietnam War. He moved to Israel in 1973 and in 1997 he established the Israeli Committee against Home Demolitions.

March: Nisreen George Zeineh Rishmawi, resident of Beit Sahour, daughter of George and Ka'inat Zeineh, sister of Isa and Nader, was promoted to District Attorney for the Bethlehem Court.

March: Palestine News Network (Ma'an), a Bethlehem-based independent Palestinian news agency on the Internet (est. 2003), became the first Palestinian radio station to broadcast solely on the Internet with news presented in Arabic, English, French, and Hebrew.

A NAME IN BETHLEHEM HISTORY

March 15: Monsignor Boutros Al Twal, Head of the Bishops at the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem is appointed President of Bethlehem University by the Apostolic Chair. This post was held initially by the late Monsignor Raouf Al Najjar and later by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah.

In September 2005 Pope Benedict VI appointed Monsignor Al Twal as Assistant to the Head of Bishops at the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem. Before this appointment, Monsignor Al Twal was Head of Bishops in Tunisia. He had also held diplomatic posts in the Papal Embassy in Honduras, Germany, Peru, and in the Political Relations Council at the Vatican.

After graduating from the Beit Jala Ecumenical Institute of the Latin Patriarchate, and after starting his advanced degree in the Ecclesial Law at the Papal University in Rome, Monsignor Al Twal served in the Latin Parish in Ramallah, Irbid (Jordan), and Amman (Jordan).

In 1974 he joined the Ecclesial Papal Academy where he received his Master Degree in Ecclesial Law in 1975.