"I threw stones at the soldiers," a kind nun told me.
"You did what?" I asked, incredulously.
"I threw stones at the soldiers during the second Intifada. They were going to hurt innocent children and I couldn't allow that!" she replied.
I was standing near a Maltese nun who has been living in Palestine for over three decades. She seems to be a frail, elderly woman, with a rebellious interior and a determination of steel.
"You love the Palestinians, don't you?" I asked.
"Of course I do. They are suffering, they are suffering immensely. You should do something about that."
+ + +
The Mayor of Bethlehem in Palestine is Anton Salman, a Catholic lawyer and a man I quickly warmed up to for his larger than life and assertive, albeit kind, mannerisms. Despite his no-nonsense attitude, he readily shares a joke or two and cracks a smile hosting others.
The first thing he told me when I met him at his office was that the Palestinians will not accept Donald Trump's claim that the US Embassy will be transferred from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
"With Mr Trump's declaration, we cannot look at the US as an honest interlocutor any longer," he told me in front of all the other members of the Local Government of Bethlehem. They all nodded in agreement.
+ + +
I had been to Jerusalem only a few hours earlier.
It was my first time there and it certainly will not be my last.
Our Ambassador to Israel, Ms Cecilia Pirotta, accompanied my delegation and I from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I sat in the car absorbing the luscious greenery outside, wondering in admiration at the fact that the Israeli Government managed to cultivate kilometres of greenery in what is a typically Mediterranean, hot and arid place. Road sign after road sign, street after street, I could witness how this young country managed to make the most of their "promised land" in the last seventy years.
The greenery was not the only thing that caught my attention.
There were checkpoints staffed by young and armed Israeli soldiers who had the final say on whether anyone could pass through the carriageway. Then, there were walls. High walls that distinguish Israeli land from the outskirts of Palestinian villages.
+ + +
Jerusalem is amazing, breathtaking and beautiful.
The car parked in front of a magnificent structure called Notre Dame which belongs to the Vatican.
"This is my ending point," the Ambassador told me. "From now on, my colleague, the representative of Malta for Palestine, will accompany you."
I learnt that we were one a so-called 'green line' - a sort of no man's land that distinguished between "Israeli Jerusalem" and "Palestinian Jerusalem (Al-Quds)."
I shook hands with the second Ambassador, Reuben Gauci. "Reuben," I asked after the usual salutations, "could you explain the boundaries between both Jerusalems?"
"Sure," he replied and led me upstairs to the rooftop.
"To your left there is West Jerusalem, to your right there is East Jerusalem." A road in the middle split the two in the middle. "That is, kind of, the demarcation line between West and East."
After a while we walked in East Jerusalem, or rather the "Palestian part". In reality, however, it is wholly controlled by Israel. I could see Israeli soldiers holding guns in their hands, patrolling the area.
As I walked the Via Cruxis and passed near Golgotha, as I visited the exact place where Jesus was crucified and buried, I could feel that the people on the ground were at one together. I saw Israeli people chatting with Palestinian colleagues; I saw Christians, Orthodox and Jews living their lives in unison. I saw shops selling pro-Palestine and pro-Israeli shirts, one next to the other.
"The issue here is not religion. Religion is not the problem. The issue here is land," another Maltese nun told me when she saw me staring at two young boys - an Israeli and a Palestinian - playing in the streets.
+ + +
Donald Trump should not have said that the Embassy in Tel Aviv will be taken to Jerusalem, or at least he should have specified that the Embassy will be taken to West Jerusalem.
I visited Ramallah. There, I could feel the anger and disappointment of Palestinian people at Trump's rash statement. I met an elderly man, who insisted on taking a picture with me. He had a young child near him.
"Do you think that peace will be achieved by the time your nephew reaches my age?" I asked the elderly man.
He stared at me and said: "I have given up hope that there will ever be peace here. My father had told me that if I intend to live here, I must give up on ever achieving peace."
I kept staring at him and looked at the boy.
This man gave up on his nephew's prospects of living in a peaceful society.
+ + +
Gaza is much worse. I did not manage to visit Gaza but I will definitely go there at my earliest. It is a prison, a dangerous prison.
It is not larger than Malta and it is a Palestinian spot of land far away from the West Bank on the border of Egypt.
It is led by Palestinian extremist; Hamas.
Toni - that's how I started calling the Bethlehem Mayor - told me that a Palestinian man with amputated legs had just been killed by Israeli soldiers. He showed me a picture of this Palestinian man. "What harm could he have done?" Toni asked. Pictures of this man spread like wildfire over news and social media.
+ + +
Bethlehem is a typical Palestinian village. It is typical not only because it falls under " Zone A" category according to the Olso Convention, but also because the outskirts are being populated by state of the art, Israeli settlements that are mushrooming all over the outskirts of the Palestinian core areas. These settlements are supervised by CCTV cameras, walls, and checkpoints manned by armed Israeli soldiers.
In the evening we inaugurated the Maltese crib that was set up in St Peter's Square at the Vatican last year.
As I looked at Toni addressing the crowd, I asked myself: How can we let the young child I had met in Ramallah grow up in this dangerous, occupied environment?
Years ago, the Maltese nun threw stones to attempt to safeguard kids. By doing nothing, we are throwing stones at those same kids.
+ + +
The Israelis have suffered greatly in the past and have the all the right to live in peace, in their own land, in their own country. There is absolutely no argument about that. I only have words of praise for Israel and the Israelis. The way they have prospered and moved on from the cruelty they suffered is nothing short of amazing. The learned Israeli scholars that have contributed to global progress and well-being along the years are indeed a gift to all mankind.
I have spoken to people in the streets from Tel Aviv and Jafa and I found them to be caring, understanding and open to discuss their future. I warmed up to them and I am strongly convinced that they all seek one thing in common: peace.
+ + +
I have been repeatedly told that the more I try to understand what is going on in the Middle East, the less I learn the truth.
The Maltese crib will be dismantled and brought back to Malta in a month's time. Yet the settlements, the guns, the walls, the checkpoints, the suffering, the uncertainty and the occupation will remain.
I wish I could give the Israeli and the Palestinians much more than a Maltese crib and a mass.