( dpa ) - Visiting US President George W Bush set off for the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem Thursday, after lunching with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Palestinian presidential compound in Ramallah.
The heavy mist, which had prevented the president from arriving by presidential helicopter in the West Bank city earlier in the day for a meeting with Abbas, had cleared sufficiently in the early afternoon to allow Marine 1 to transport Bush the relatively short distance to the Biblical town where Jesus is believed to have been born.
Bush arrived in Israel Wednesday for a three-day visit in order to, as he put it, "nudge the (peace) process forward."
He is due to leave on Friday for Kuwait, the next stop on his eight-nation regional tour.