Summary
Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai made two politically charged stops Wednesday in his precedent-setting pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a trip that has been overshadowed by criticism back home.
Rai -- the first Lebanese religious leader to visit Israel despite the formal state of war between the two countries -- met with two very different groups of Maronites in northern Israel.
One community has been locked in a 66-year-old struggle with the Israeli authorities to return to its village. The other fought alongside Israeli troops in south Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s.
In the morning, Rai led prayers and a religious procession in what remains of Kufr Birim, a Maronite village just a few kilometers south of the Lebanese border.
In the afternoon, Rai will celebrate Mass on the shores of the Sea of Galilee for former Lebanese militiamen who helped Israel maintain an 18-year military occupation of southern Lebanon.
The number of Maronites is estimated at about 850,000 in Lebanon, compared to about 11,000 in Israel.
The two countries remain formally at war and Israel has invaded Lebanon several times since the 1970s.
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