The little town of Bethlehem has cancelled Christmas celebrations for a second year while Israel’s war reigns in Gaza and West Bank Palestinians face Israeli settler attacks and army operations. There are no coloured lights on the tall pine tree presiding over Manger Square, no visitors bowing to enter the squat door of the Church of the Nativity, no seasonal events and no handicraft markets. The December advent calendar is blank. The Bethlehem municipality’s weekly Saturday market was to be extended through Sunday, media spokeswoman Carmen Ghattas said in a telephone interview. This is the municipality’s sole public concession to the holiday season.
Bethlehem’s residents and visitors must rely once again on churches to celebrate Christmas. In the recently renovated fourth-century Orthodox church of the Nativity, a few steps below the chancel is a small subterranean cave where a 14-point silver star on the marble floor marks the site of Jesus’s birth. Christmas Eve midnight mass is at the 19th-century neo-Gothic Catholic church of St Catherine. Depending on the security situation, Palestinian presidents Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas previously attended the service. In 2002, when Arafat was imprisoned by the Israeli army in his Ramallah compound, a black and while keffiyeh was draped on his front-row chair.
Orthodox Christmas services will be held at the Church of the Nativity on January 6th and 7th. Orthodox priest Issa Thaljieh told Israel365News: “The Church of the Nativity is the most important spot on Earth, and as we come closer to Christmas it is supposed to be packed with visitors and tourists who come to pray and to light a candle of hope. We have never seen it like this, even during Covid.”
“The patriarchs and heads of the churches in Jerusalem have invited their communities to celebrate in ways that express Christian hope but also respect the hardships endured by the Gaza population amid the ongoing war,” the Vatican said in a statement.
The US, Britain and other countries have issued advisories warning against visiting the West Bank, Gaza and northern Israel. Travel agencies have urged customers to reconsider plans to go to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
There are “low bookings in hotels” that, in peaceful times, are packed with visitors. “This is a big hit for our economy,” Ms Ghattas stated. Palestinian Christian citizens of Israel from Nazareth, Jesus’s hometown, formerly travelled to Bethlehem for Christmas but are not expected this year, she said. The lack of security in the Bethlehem region discourages visitors.
Covid stole Christmas from Bethlehem in 2020 and 2021 following the 2019 bumper year. Celebrations revived in 2022 but were shut down last year. In a normal year, Bethlehem counted on 1.5 million visitors, according to the Palestinian tourism ministry. Shops selling mother-o’-pearl jewellery and olive-wood handicrafts, restaurants, cafes, taxis drivers and tour guides have no business. Families are struggling.
Orthodox priest Thaljieh told Reuters: “The emigration out of Bethlehem is increasing daily and monthly, and ... this has a negative impact on the city.” Before Israel’s 1948 war, 85 per cent of Bethlehem’s population was Christian. Since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank, illegal Israeli settlements, walls and military outposts have pushed Muslims in surrounding villages to move to Bethlehem while Christians have left. Christians currently comprise 10 per cent of Bethlehem’s dwindling population of about 28,500 according to the most recent census in 2017.
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