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It will be a sad, silent night in Bethlehem.
The city of Jesus’ birth has canceled its annual Christmas celebrations out of respect for the ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip, nearly three months into the war between Israel and Hamas.
Bethlehem – or Beit Lechem, located in what is now the Israeli-occupied West Bank – is typically flooded with pilgrims and other celebrants in late December.
This year, however, the festivities are pared back to a nativity scene at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church of an infant Jesus wrapped in a keffiyeh, surrounded by rubble, NPR reported.
A similar installation will also be placed in Manger Square before Sunday, which is Christmas Eve.
Meanwhile, the Church of the Nativity – which dates back to the sixth century – included razor wire and tarp-wrapped figures in its nativity scene.
The church is practically empty as the usual 6,000 daily visitors that descend on Bethlehem at Christmastime has trickled down to less than 1,000 in one month, the Washington Post reported.
The mournful mood was the joint decision of multiple Palestinian Christian leaders, who came together last month to cancel the public celebrations in light of the war in Gaza.
As a result, the usual parade of 28 Boy Scout troops accompanying the Latin Patriarch’s procession into the city will be reduced to one, silent troop holding Bible verses on peace and possibly photographs of Gazan children, the Washington Post added.
The scaled-down holiday comes just one year after Christmas returned to Bethlehem in full-swing in 2022, following two years of curtailed festivities due to COVID-19.
Christian leaders in Bethlehem have vocally condemned Hamas’ surprise terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which killed about 1,200 people and saw at least 240 others taken hostage.
“We condemn the brutal attacks of Hamas on October 7th that caused the loss of life of nearly 1,400 Israelis and citizens of other nations, and we call for the immediate release of all civilians held hostage,” a group of Bethlehem clerics wrote in a letter to President Joe Biden last month.
Hamas’ atrocities, however, did not justify what the group called the “collective violence” against civilians in Gaza, who have now been under siege from Israel’s military for almost three months, the letter read.
“It’s impossible to celebrate when so many — on both sides — have lost so much,” Rami Asakrieh, a Franciscan friar and pastor of St. Catherine’s Church, told the Washington Post this week.
“We canceled the festivities as a sign of solidarity with the victims of the war,” Asakrieh, who signed the letter to Biden, explained.
In his annual Christmas speech, Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nanania slammed Israel’s retaliatory bombardment of Gaza as “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing,” the Washington Post said.
The head of the local chamber of commerce, Samir Hazboun, also criticized what he called the “moral failure of the West” to curtail the killing of Gazan civilians, the outlet continued.
“If Jesus were born today, he would be born in Gaza amid the rubble,” the Rev. Munther Isaac, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, said while standing over his church’s rubble-strewn nativity.
“Who can sing ‘Joy to the World’ today?” he lamented, adding that the story of Jesus’ birth in a stable after his parents – Mary, and her husband Joseph, a Jewish man living under Roman rule – are unable to find lodging is “a story we Palestinians can understand.”
While the usual religious and festive activities have been scaled far back, traditional mass will still be read to mark the major Christian holiday, Asakrieh told the Washington Post.
“We need the Christmas message more than ever,” he insisted. “We need the peace and love. We need the light.”
With Post wires
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