Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See's permanent observer to the United Nations, said that Christians in the Holy Land had become the targets of religious extremists.

"We are obliged this year to draw attention to the growing difficulties faced by Palestinian Christians who, although they belong to a faith born in that very land, are sometimes viewed with suspicion by their neighbours," Archbishop Migliore said in a speech at the United Nations on 1 November.

"Doubly discriminated against, it is hardly surprising to learn that this tiny group - less than 2 per cent of the local Palestinian population - is particularly marginalised," the Roman Catholic envoy added.

"All Palestinians have the right to fair and fair-minded treatment from their peers and from the recognised authorities alike," Archbishop Migliore said. "Religious extremism of any kind, implicated in attacks, abuse and harassment of Christians in the area around Bethlehem recently, is not to be tolerated," he said.

Archbishop Migliore did not elaborate about the incidents in the Bethlehem area to which he referred in his speech. There has been rising tension in the Bethlehem area in recent years. The Muslim population has swelled in the Palestinian-ruled West Bank town where Jesus was born as Christian numbers have shrunk.

Christians in the Bethlehem area have also been angry at an Israeli-built barrier that has forced them to lose land and also at seizures of Christian owned-land in the area by Muslim neighbours who claim the land to be theirs. Efforts by the Christian landowners to regain their property in Palestinian Authority courts have so far failed.

The Vatican envoy also criticised Israel for the barrier it is building in the West Bank which separates thousands of Palestinians from their relatives, friends and facilities such as schools, hospitals and in some cases their own land or properties.

"My delegation freely acknowledges the right of all peoples to live in peace and security," Archbishop Migliore added. "On the other hand, we believe that the Holy Land is in greater need of bridges than of walls."

Bishop Munib Younan, the head of the Lutheran Church in the Holy Land, told Ecumenical News International that the unstable political situation in the region as well as the barrier and other aspects of Israeli occupation were causing Christians to migrate from the Holy Land.

He said he feared that if nobody helped the Christian churches and Christian population then, in 20 years, there would be "holy sites and holy stones but no holy people".

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