On the afternoon of Friday 28 December, two Palestinian gunmen and two armed off-duty Israeli soldiers died from a gun battle in the Hebron area. The shooting took place in an area under Palestinian control, near the village of Beit Kahil. The two Israelis lived in Kiryat Arba, the Israeli settlement on the outskirts of Hebron. Local media outlets reported that one or two injured Palestinians escaped.

It was a warm, sunny Christmas day in the South Hebron Hills. My Christian Peacemaker teammate and I spent the morning with an At-Tuwani villager and his children plowing and sowing wheat with two donkeys. Flocks of sheep were on the hills around us, an ideal setting for thinking about the birth of Jesus. We were there in solidarity with people facing possible attacks from the occupiers, from the people with guns, from those who wield worldly power. We were standing with the shepherds, with the dispossessed--people like those to whom the angels announced good news 2,000 years ago.