Under the shadow of Gaza conflict, Jesus’ conventional birthplace is gearing up for a subdued Christmas
BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Bethlehem is gearing up for a subdued Christmas, with out the festive lights and customary Christmas tree towering over Manger Square, after officers in Jesus’ conventional birthplace determined to forgo celebrations because of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The cancellation of Christmas festivities, which generally draw 1000’s of tourists, is a extreme blow to the city’s tourism-dependent financial system. But joyous revelry is untenable at a time of immense struggling of Palestinians in Gaza, mentioned Mayor Hana Haniyeh.
“The economy is crashing,” Haniyeh informed The Associated Press on Friday. “But if we compare it with what’s happening to our people and Gaza, it’s nothing.”
More than 18,700 Palestinians have been killed and greater than 50,000 wounded throughout Israel’s blistering air and floor offensive in opposition to Gaza’s Hamas rulers, in keeping with well being officers there, whereas some 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced. The conflict was triggered by Hamas’ lethal assault Oct. 7 on southern Israel during which militants killed about 1,200 individuals, most of them civilians, and took greater than 240 hostages.
Since Oct. 7, entry to Bethlehem and different Palestinian cities within the Israeli-occupied West Bank has been tough, with lengthy traces of motorists ready to go navy checkpoints. The restrictions have additionally prevented many Palestinians from exiting the territory to work in Israel.
City leaders fret concerning the influence the closures have on the small Palestinian financial system within the West Bank, already scuffling with a dramatic fall in tourism because the begin of the conflict. The Palestinian tourism sector has incurred losses of $2.5 million a day, amounting to $200 million by the tip of the 12 months, the Palestinian minister of tourism mentioned Wednesday.
The yearly Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem – shared amongst Armenian, Catholic and Orthodox denominations – are main boons for town, the place tourism accounts for 70% of its yearly revenue. But the streets are empty this season.
With most main airways canceling flights to Israel, over 70 inns in Bethlehem have been pressured to shut, leaving some 6,000 staff within the tourism sector unemployed, in keeping with Sami Thaljieh, supervisor of the Sancta Maria Hotel.
“I spend my days drinking tea and coffee, waiting for customers who never come. Today, there is no tourism,” mentioned Ahmed Danna, a Bethlehem store proprietor.
Haniyeh mentioned that whereas Christmas festivities have been cancelled, non secular ceremonies will happen, together with a conventional gathering of church leaders and a Midnight Mass.
“Bethlehem is an essential part of the Palestinian community,” the mayor mentioned. “So at Midnight Mass this year, we will pray for peace, the message of peace that was founded in Bethlehem when Jesus Christ was born.”
George Carlos Canawati, a Palestinian journalist, lecturer, and scout chief, known as his metropolis “sad and heartbroken.” He mentioned his Boy Scout troop will conduct a silent march throughout town, in mourning of these killed in Gaza.
“We receive the Christmas message by rejecting injustice and aggression, and we will pray for peace to come to the land of peace,” mentioned Canawati.
The enthusiasm of Bethlehem’s Christmas festivities have lengthy been a barometer of Israeli-Palestinian relations.
Celebrations have been grim in 2000 in the beginning of the second intifada, or rebellion, when Israeli forces locked down components of the West Bank in response to Palestinians finishing up scores of suicide bombings and different assaults that killed Israeli civilians.
Times have been additionally tense throughout an earlier Palestinian rebellion, which lasted from 1987-1993, when annual festivities in Manger Square have been overseen by Israeli military snipers on the rooftops.
The sober temper this 12 months isn’t confined to Bethlehem.
Across the Holy Land, Christmas festivities have been placed on maintain. There are 182,000 Christians in Israel, 50,000 within the West Bank and Jerusalem and 1,300 in Gaza, in keeping with the U.S. State Department. The overwhelming majority are Palestinians.
In Jerusalem, the usually bustling passageways of the Old City’s Christian Quarter have fallen quiet because the conflict started. Shops are boarded up, with their house owners saying they’re too frightened to open – and even when they did, they are saying they wouldn’t have a lot enterprise.
The heads of main church buildings in Jerusalem introduced in November that vacation celebrations could be canceled. “We call upon our congregations to stand strong with those facing such afflictions by this year foregoing any unnecessarily festive activities,” they wrote.
At the altar of Bethlehem’s Evangelical Lutheran church, a revised nativity scene is on show. A determine of child Jesus wrapped in a Palestinian keffiyeh is perched atop a pile of rubble. The doll lies beneath an olive tree – for Palestinians, an emblem of steadfastness.
“While the world is celebrating, our children are under the rubble. While the world is celebrating, our families are displaced and their homes are destroyed,” mentioned the church’s Pastor, Munther Isaac. “This is Christmas to us in Palestine.”
