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In pictures: Christmas was celebrated around the Middle East
Pope Francis on Wednesday urged the world community to strive for peace and security in war-ravaged Syria and the Middle East in his Christmas message
A view of Burj Al Arab from Madinat Jumeirah during Christmas Day in Dubai. GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP/Getty Images
Christians spend their Christmas Day on the beach in Kuwait City. YASSER AL-ZAYYAT/AFP/Getty Images
Bishop Paul Abdel Sater, Curial Bishop of the Maronite Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch, swings a censer during the Christmas Morning mass at the Maronite Cathedral of St George in the capital Beirut’s downtown district on Christmas Day. ANWAR AMRO/AFP/Getty Images
Worshippers receive communion during Christmas morning mass at the Prophet Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo. AFP/Getty Images
Iraqi Kurds dressed as Santa Claus perform during Christmas celebrations at a shopping mall in the eponymous northern Iraqi city and capital of the autonomous Kurdish region. SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images
Members of the the Syriac Orthodox community attend the Christmas Mass St. Mary Church in the centre of Diyarbakir. ILYAS AKENGIN/AFP/Getty Images
Worshippers attend the midnight Christmas Eve mass at Saint Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in the Egyptian capital Cairo in the central downtown district. MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas holds a wooden relic reputed to be part of Jesus’s manger, as he speaks with the acting Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa during a Christmas midnight mass in the Church of the Nativity, in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. MUSSA ISSA QAWASMA/POOL/AFP/Getty Images
Iraqi Christians attend a Christmas Eve service at the Church of Um al-Noor in Arbil, the eponymous northern Iraqi city and capital of the autonomous Kurdish region. SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images
