Bethlehem

Maxim Giacaman, 23, a medical student from Bethlehem, told the BBC he was unable to travel abroad for a key elective in his medical studies.

The vehicle is currently in Bethlehem, and will enter Gaza if and when Israel opens a humanitarian corridor.

It was a stance that the Rev. Munther Isaac, a Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem, saw as a counterweight to the muscular brand of conservative Christianity increasingly dominating U.S. discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A defining image of his trip came at an unscheduled stop off in Bethlehem when he prayed for peace by the graffitied wall that forms part of Israel's West Bank barrier.

Former state Sen. Martha Escutia, 68, recalled that her grandfather worked at the Bethlehem Steel plant in Bell but lost his job in the first wave of plant closures.