The unscheduled stop came after he called for an end to the “increasingly unacceptable” Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Speaking in Bethlehem, the Pope invited the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to the Vatican to pray for peace.
The tour’s official purpose is to improve ties with the Orthodox Church.
The Pope is to meet Bartholomew I, the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, in Jerusalem later – to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a historic meeting of Catholic and Orthodox leaders who moved to end 900 years of division between the two churches.
