Bethlehem marks a second subdued Christmas during the war in Gaza

By JALAL BWAITEL
Associated Press

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Bethlehem marked another somber Christmas Eve on Tuesday in the traditional birthplace of Jesus under the shadow of war in Gaza.

The excitement and cheer that typically descends on the Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank on Christmas were nowhere to be found: The festive lights and giant tree that normally decorate Manger Square were missing, and as were the throngs of foreign tourists that usually fill the square.

Palestinian scouts marched silently through the streets, a departure from their usual raucous brass marching band. Some carried a sign that read, “We want life, not death.”

Palestinian security forces, meanwhile, arranged barriers near the Nativity Church, built atop the spot where Jesus is believed to have been born, and a worker cleared garbage bins.

"Always the message of Bethlehem is a message of peace and hope," said Mayor Anton Salman. “And these days, we are also sending our message to the world: peace and hope, but insisting that the world must work to end our suffering as Palestinian people.”

The cancellation of Christmas festivities is a severe blow to the town's economy. Tourism accounts for an estimated 70% of Bethlehem’s income — almost all of it from the Christmas season. Salman said unemployment is hovering around 50% — higher than the 30% unemployment across the rest of the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Finance Ministry.

Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the top Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land, noted the shuttered shops and empty streets and expressed hope that next year would be better.

“This has to be the last Christmas that is so sad,” he told hundreds of people gathered in Manger Square, where normally tens of thousands would congregate. “I bring you the greetings, the prayers, of our brothers and sisters in Gaza.”

Pizzaballa held a special pre-Christmas mass in Holy Family Church in Gaza City on Sunday. “I saw everything destroyed, poverty, disaster, but I also saw life. They don’t give up, so we don’t give up,” he said.

The number of visitors to the town plunged from a pre-COVID high of around 2 million visitors per year in 2019 to fewer than 100,000 visitors in 2024, said Jiries Qumsiyeh, the spokesperson for the Palestinian Tourism Ministry.

Bethlehem is an important center in the history of Christianity, but Christians make up only a small percentage of the roughly 14 million people spread across the Holy Land. There are about 182,000 in Israel, 50,000 in the West Bank and Jerusalem and 1,300 in Gaza, according to the U.S. State Department.

While the war in Gaza has deterred tourists and pilgrims alike, it has also prompted a surge of violence in the West Bank, with more than 800 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire and dozens of Israelis killed in militant attacks.

Since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war, access to and from Bethlehem and other Palestinian towns in the West Bank has been difficult, with long lines of motorists waiting to pass Israeli military checkpoints. Restrictions have also prevented some 150,000 Palestinians from leaving the territory to work in Israel, causing the economy there to contract by 25%.

More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to health officials there, while some 90% of the territory’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced. Officials say more than half of the dead are women and children, though they don't give a breakdown of how many are civilians and how many fighters.

In the Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel, Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took more than 250 hostages.

\Elsewhere, Christmas celebrations were also subdued.