A group of Jewish women say they were asked to leave Jerusalem's Western Wall area - a holy site for Judaism - after their prayers were deemed offensive to the 'local custom'.

British church leaders of various denominations laced up their hiking boots, hoisted rucksacks and gathered laptops this week in order to publicise a unique virtual 'Journey to Jerusalem' for Lent 2009.

The Jerusalem International YMCA is this year marking the 130th anniversary of when it first opened its doors in the back of a Christian bookstore inside the Old City's Jaffa Gate during the days of Ottoman rule in 1878.

Bishop Munib Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church has said Christians need a stronger voice in Jerusalem in order to prevent tensions spreading there, and that Muslims and Christians should work together on ecology issues.

Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell says that he was "violently ejected" from a major London evangelical church after seeking to mount a protest against a hardline Anglican group.

The Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, Suheil Dawani, has called on participants in the conservative Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) to approach their summit in a spirit of "peace, reconciliation and goodwill."

The vicious circle of violence which tormented Israel and Palestine for years has returned, says Jerusalem Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan, following the shooting attack on a Jewish seminary. Blood will not save the Holy Land, he says.

The head of a world churches body which has been highly critical of the policies of the state of Israel toward the Palestinians has unequivocally condemned the recent bomb outrage against a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem.

Palestinians and Jews working for peace and justice have expressed deep foreboding about the future after Israel responded to the appalling recent shootings in Jerusalem with hints of reprisals and a pledge to occupy more territory.

The compassionate actions of human beings, not their claims against each other, reflect the will of God and the transforming power of Jesus the Prince of Peace, say the heads of the churches in Jerusalem this Christmastide.