Bethlehem, occupied West Financial institution – Revered because the birthplace of Christ, the city of Bethlehem within the occupied West Financial institution is normally bustling with hundreds of pilgrims and vacationers in December.
A large Christmas tree, parades, and spiritual ceremonies sometimes inaugurate the season’s celebrations in Nativity Sq.. However this 12 months, none of these items are occurring due to Israel’s persevering with assault on the Gaza Strip, and due to financial hardship.
The streets and courtyards in Bethlehem are largely empty, the roads resulting in town have been sealed off by Israeli forces, and several other cities within the space have been violently raided by armed Israeli troopers.
Church buildings throughout Palestine introduced the cancellation of all Christmas festivities in an expression of unity with Gaza – limiting actions to providers and prayers.
All of this has affected Christmas tourism, which was revived solely final 12 months following a two-year hiatus resulting from well being and journey restrictions associated to the coronavirus pandemic.
Bethlehem normally receives as much as 1.5 million vacationers yearly, in line with the Palestinian ministry for tourism and tradition.
Native companies have particularly suffered all through the previous few years, together with Jack Issa Juqman’s carvings and antiques store.
The 52-year-old has been making wood statues and carvings associated to Jesus since he was a young person, identical to his father and grandfather earlier than him. It’s believed that the workshop dates again about 200 years, Juqman instructed Al Jazeera.
He considers the “conventional craft … a household inheritance”. Working with olive wooden, making intricate designs and sturdy items, is one thing the household takes nice delight in.
This particular occupation and craft, Juqman mentioned, stresses the extent of the Palestinian individuals’s connection to their homeland.
The wooden comes from olive bushes, that are an vital image of Palestinians’ attachment to their land. It takes a few years to nurture, develop and harvest olive bushes.
Yearly, employees inside the ability work tirelessly on crafting and promoting the items, Juqman mentioned.
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They work “like a beehive” in preparation for the Christmas season, he mentioned, which peaks throughout October, November and December.
However this 12 months, the “blow” got here early, on October 7, following the Hamas assaults. The occasions that shortly unfolded after have triggered vacationers to vanish from the southern West Financial institution city, Juqman mentioned.
“We already needed to let 9 staff go” he mentioned.
‘Unimaginable to rejoice’
Distributors like Juqman had suffered “setbacks” resulting from “quarantines, and COVID measures” lately, which triggered a decline within the economic system, he mentioned.
They had been hoping for “a affluent season” across the vacation season this 12 months, he added.
He mentioned he believes what’s occurring within the West Financial institution quantities to “collective punishment”, and is unprecedented. It threatens the existence of accommodations, firms and your entire tourism sector in Bethlehem, he added.
Rula Maayah, the Palestinian minister for tourism, mentioned that the tourism sector has incurred important losses on account of the Israeli assault on Gaza.
The losses for this year are anticipated to quantity to $200m, Maayah mentioned. In accordance with her, at the least 60 p.c of the losses instantly have an effect on Bethlehem.
Folks from all around the world, together with the USA, Russia Romania, Poland, Italy, Spain and India would go to town yearly, Maayah mentioned.
At a time when the world is celebrating Christmas, Bethlehem is “unhappy, silent, in ache, and utterly besieged”, Maayah mentioned.
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“Nobody can attain it or depart it, its individuals are with out work and with out hope on account of the disruption in tourism,” which is the spine of its economic system, she added.
Even the heads of non secular institutions in Bethlehem converse of the significance of cancelling celebrations this 12 months.
Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Munther Isaac, mentioned it’s “unattainable to rejoice” this 12 months when there’s a “genocidal battle in opposition to our individuals in Gaza”.
“Yearly we put a Christmas tree on this place, however this 12 months, we welcome Christmas with out a tree and with out lights,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
The church determined that its Christmas Nativity scene this 12 months would replicate the “painful actuality” of youngsters residing in Palestine immediately, Issac mentioned.
That is why it positioned the symbolic Child Jesus in a manger of rubble and destruction, as a “message of solidarity with these struggling in Gaza”, he mentioned.
“If Christ had been to be born immediately, he can be born underneath the rubble”, amid Israeli assaults, he added.
Isaac mentioned he hopes the scene will inform the world about Palestine’s want for “justice” and for the pressing want for a ceasefire in Gaza.
![Bethlehem/Mosab Shwer](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/image00010-1703189715.jpeg?w=770&resize=770%2C513)
Issa Thaljieh, a 40-year-old Greek Orthodox parish priest on the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, agrees, and mentioned cancelling Christmas celebrations in solidarity with the individuals in Gaza sends a transparent “message to the world”.
“We see youngsters, ladies and aged being killed amid widespread destruction. It’s troublesome to stay silent about what is going on,” Thaljieh mentioned.
He mentioned the church hopes to “open the eyes and conscience” of individuals all over the world in order that they will “see” the Palestinian individuals who search to stay with out occupation.
The “crimes of the occupation” have stripped Palestinians of their pleasure, Thaljieh mentioned.
Since October 7, greater than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed within the blockaded Gaza Strip. In the meantime, at the least 275 Palestinians, together with 63 youngsters, have been killed by Israeli forces or armed settlers within the West Financial institution.
Hundreds extra have been arrested in near-daily raids on cities and villages throughout the West Financial institution.