They dug into a box full of toys and handed out dolls, cars, water colors, chess and bowling sets — as they marked Christmas morning in the troubled province, far from family and friends in Puerto Rico and Massachusetts.

"It's a beautiful thing," said Blagoje Stojkovic, an elementary school teacher, as children began unwrapping and comparing toys.

At the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, pews were packed with hundreds of worshippers, but foreign visitors critical to the town's economy were largely absent, deterred by recent Palestinian infighting and the conflict with Israel.