Bethlehem, occupied West Financial institution – At Christmas, Noha Helmi Tarazi usually decorates her residence with a big tree, which she describes as a logo of sunshine and pleasure.
The 87-year-old prepares the home for her household, who collect right here every year, and makes Christmas sweets and huge, festive meals. She often locations presents beneath the Christmas tree for her grandchildren, taking care to wrap them and label them with their names.
This yr, nobody will collect in her residence. Even the youngsters don’t really feel like celebrating, she says.
“There isn’t any pleasure left in our hearts,” she says.
Within the birthplace of Jesus Christ, the celebrations for Christmas are on maintain. The decision to cancel Christmas has not been taken flippantly, however it’s one the church and group listed here are all united on, to indicate their solidarity with the Palestinians dealing with Israeli bombardment and a complete siege within the Gaza Strip.
Israeli bombing and artillery fireplace have killed more than 20,000 people in Gaza because the warfare started on October 7, together with at the least 8,000 kids. Greater than 300 individuals have been killed within the occupied West Financial institution, too, both by Israeli troopers or by settlers who usually assault with cowl from Israeli troops.
The warfare has introduced Bethlehem’s tourism – a bedrock of its financial system – to a standstill on the time of the yr when it often peaks. The place guests from all over the world would often throng Bethlehem’s markets round Christmas, the streets are empty this yr.
However even when vacationers have been round, there’s no festivity among the many residents of Bethlehem, a lot of whom have shut relations in Gaza.
“How can we have fun Christmas within the midst of this genocidal warfare?” asks Tarazi, identified to these near her as Um Shadi. “How can we have fun when individuals in Gaza wrestle to get even one meal a day?”
The photographs and information of the struggling in Gaza beneath Israel’s relentless bombardment and floor invasion are an excessive amount of for her. Um Shadi, whose household lives in Gaza Metropolis, says she has been significantly disturbed by movies of individuals fleeing in direction of the ocean and being compelled to boil seawater to make it drinkable.
She grew up within the Remal neighbourhood of Gaza Metropolis and lived there by way of her 20s throughout the Nineteen Sixties. She has “lovely reminiscences of the ocean”, the place she used to swim at night time. Folks lived in peace, she says.
Life grew to become more durable after she graduated with a level in English literature from Cairo College in 1967. She was unable to return to Gaza as a result of it was occupied by Israel that yr, and as a substitute, she spent the subsequent 10 years in Libya, the place her brothers additionally lived and the place she met her husband.
She ultimately returned to the occupied West Financial institution, the place she made her residence and constructed her Christmas rituals along with her household – traditions she is going to skip this yr.
‘This Christmas, might God have mercy on them’
All indicators of Christmas have disappeared from the streets and houses of Bethlehem. Often, individuals flock to Manger Square, which is adorned with decorations, to look at fireworks. None of that can occur this yr.
A number of individuals in Bethlehem and the encircling space have relations in Gaza. Um Shadi herself has misplaced a brother and a sister because the warfare started.
Her brother died on October 17 after being unable to obtain a life-saving gallbladder operation due to the aerial bombardment of hospitals within the Strip.
Only a few days later, one among her sisters died in an air strike on St Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, the place the household had taken shelter. One other sister misplaced a leg throughout the identical bombardment.
![Um Shadi](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/WhatsApp-Image-2023-12-22-at-1.06.28-PM-1703251504.jpeg?w=770&resize=770%2C578)
It has all the time been tough to see her household, even earlier than the warfare, however now she will barely even converse to them due to the telecommunications blackouts in Gaza.
Um Shadi was unable to attend one other sister’s funeral within the enclave earlier than the warfare as a result of she was not granted a allow to journey there. As a substitute, her niece needed to take a video of the ceremony for her.
In happier years, some Christians from Gaza had been capable of receive permits from the Israeli authorities to journey from Gaza to Bethlehem at Christmas – one thing her sisters and her good friend Rose usually did, she says.
“My sisters used to go to me, and I say this yr on Christmas, might God have mercy on them.”
The agony of not with the ability to talk along with her household in Gaza is insufferable, she provides. It has introduced her to “the brink of despair”.
Christmas was once the one joyful occasion that everybody may rely on every year, Um Shadi says. Now, that has gone, too.