Dec. 24 (UPI) — Christians in Israel and Palestine are celebrating Christmas for the first time in two years now that Israel and Hamas have entered a cease-fire.
In Bethlehem, in the West Bank, tourism normally boosts the economy this time of year as Christians come from around the world to see the city where Jesus was born. But due to the fighting, tourists have avoided the region.
This year, the cease-fire emboldened Bethlehem Mayor Maher Canawati to bring back the annual Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, which drew visitors from around the region, but very few from international locations.
“[In] Bethlehem, you know, we are living from tourists, from tourism and from pilgrims who come to stay in our hotels, to eat in our restaurants, to buy our souvenirs that we’re producing here,” Canawati told CBS News. “And there was a complete halt on tourism for the past two years.”
The lack of tourists has driven Bethlehem unemployment to 70%.
Muhammad Abu Jurah’s Bethlehem souvenir shop has been in his family for generations, but he’s had to lay off all his staff.
“We don’t have a lot of tourists because, you know, the war,” he told CBS. “So, this is why they have a big problem in Bethlehem without tourists.”
Bethlehem tour guide Matthew Qasis said he wants the tourists to return.
“Come back, because Bethlehem belongs to everyone, and Bethlehem is a message of love and peace, a message needed now more than ever, and a prayer of hope that the faithful return to the place where it’s believed Christmas began,” he told CBS.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Catholic Church’s top leader in the Holy Land and the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, led a procession Wednesday from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.
One day earlier, he led a Christmas Eve Mass at Holy Family Church in Gaza City, at which he baptized a new member: Marco Nader Habshi, The Washington Post reported.
Gaza Christians have been unable to celebrate their holidays openly for years. The Christian population in Gaza, mostly Catholic and Greek Orthodox, has dropped from 1,000 to 500.
“The celebrations of Christian and Muslim festivals were shared,” said Yousef AlKhouri, a Gaza native and dean at Bethlehem Bible College in the West Bank, about when he was young. He told The Post that there was always a sense of solidarity among “Palestinian Christians and Muslims in Gaza: going to school together, playing together, going to the YMCA.”
But since Hamas took control of the enclave, Christians have mostly celebrated privately.
“There is an assumption that Gaza has no Christian population, or no Christian history,” AlKhouri said. “And that’s not true.”
Holy Family Church served as a sanctuary for many Christians during the war. Elias al-Jilda, an Orthodox Christian in Gaza, had to shelter at the Catholic church after his home was destroyed one month into the war, he told The Post. He and his family now have a rented home but are still working to furnish it.
The holiday celebration “will not be full of joy, but it is an attempt to renew life,” Jilda, 59, who serves on the council of the Arab Orthodox Church in Gaza, said of this season’s holiday celebration. He told The Post he remembers Christmas in Gaza when Muslims and Christians came together to celebrate city-wide. “It was a special occasion; an opportunity for us to breathe.”
At the Sunday Mass at Holy Family, Pizzaballa told the Christians in Gaza to hold on to hope.
“We are called not only to survive, but to rebuild life,” he said. “We must bring the spirit of Christmas — the spirit of light, tenderness and love. It may seem impossible, but after two years of terrible war, we are still here.”
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