Wooden relics said to be from the manger that held the infant Jesus will be returned from Rome to Bethlehem in time for the Christmas season, Palestinian officials said on Friday.

Bethlehem's mayor, Anton Salman, told the Palestinian news agency WAFA the move followed President Mahmoud Abbas's most recent visit to the Vatican, when Abbas asked Pope Francis for the return of the fragments held in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

Salman said the relics were taken from Bethlehem around 1,000 years ago, and are now likely to be placed inside Saint Catherine's Church, adjacent to the Church of the Nativity in Manger Square, the reputed site of Jesus's birth.