On Christmas Eve, Bethlehem resembles a ghost town, celebrations halted due to the war between Israel and Hamas
A group of local students unfurled a huge Palestinian flag as they stood in silence.
BETHLEHEM, West Bank: The normally bustling biblical birthplace of Jesus resembled a ghost town on Sunday as Christmas Eve celebrations in Bethlehem were canceled due to the war between Israel and Hamas.
The festive lights and Christmas tree that normally adorn Manger Square were missing, as were the throngs of foreign tourists and jubilant youth brass bands that gather in the West Bank city every year to celebrate the holiday. Dozens of Palestinian security forces patrolled the empty square.
“This year, without a Christmas tree and without light, there is only darkness,” said Brother John Vinh, a Franciscan monk from Vietnam who has lived in Jerusalem for six years.
He said he always comes to Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas, but this year was especially sobering, as he gazed at a nativity scene in Manger Square with a baby Jesus wrapped in a white shroud, reminiscent of the thousands of children who are his killed during the fighting in Gaza. . Barbed wire surrounded the scene, with the gray rubble reflecting none of the cheerful lights and bursts of color that normally fill the square during the Christmas season.
Canceling Christmas festivities is a major blow to the city’s economy. Tourism accounts for an estimated 70% of Bethlehem’s income – almost all of it during the Christmas period.
With many major airlines canceling flights to Israel, few foreigners are visiting. Local officials say more than 70 hotels in Bethlehem have been forced to close, leaving thousands of people unemployed.
Gift shops were slow to open on Christmas Eve, although a few did so after the rain stopped pouring. However, there were few visitors.
“We cannot justify putting out a tree and celebrating like normal, while some people (in Gaza) don’t even have a house to go to,” said Ala’a Salameh, one of the owners of Afteem Restaurant, a family-owned falafel restaurant just a few steps from the square.
Salameh said Christmas Eve is usually the busiest day of the year. “Normally you can’t find a single chair to sit on, we are packed from morning to midnight,” says Salameh. This year only one table was occupied by journalists taking a break from the rain.
Under a banner reading “Bethlehem’s Christmas bells ring for ceasefire in Gaza,” some teenagers offered small inflatable Santas, but no one bought any. Instead of their traditional musical march through the streets of Bethlehem, young scouts stood silently with flags. A group of local students unfurled a huge Palestinian flag as they stood in silence.
“Our message every year at Christmas is one of peace and love, but this year it is a message of sadness, grief and anger towards the international community about what is happening and going on in the Gaza Strip,” said the mayor of Bethlehem, Hana Haniyeh. , said in a speech to the crowd.
More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 50,000 injured in Israel’s air and ground offensive against Gaza’s Hamas rulers, while about 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced, according to health officials there. The war was sparked by Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took more than 240 hostages.
The Gaza war has been accompanied by a wave of violence, with around 300 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire.
The fighting has affected life in the West Bank. Since October 7, access to Bethlehem and other Palestinian towns in the Israeli-occupied territory has been difficult, with long lines of motorists waiting to pass through military checkpoints. The restrictions have also prevented tens of thousands of Palestinians from leaving the area to work in Israel.
Amir Michael Giacaman opened his shop ‘Il Bambino’ for the first time since October 7, which sells olive wood carvings and other souvenirs. There have been no tourists and few locals have money to spare as those who worked in Israel are stuck at home.
“When people have extra money, they go and buy food,” said his wife Safa Giacaman. “This year we are telling the Christmas story. We celebrate Jesus, not the tree, not Santa Claus, she said, as their daughter Makaella ran through the abandoned store.