In better times the West Bank city of Bethlehem, where Christ was born, is festive and bustling with locals and international tourists and religious pilgrims at this time of year.
But the Palestinian city will spend its second straight year of the Gaza War with much more low key celebrations only done inside churches and not the typical huge festive Christmas parades through the main square. Absent is also the main large lit-up Christmas tree which usually dominates the town during the holiday season.
The Bethlehem Municipality has announced that the public celebrations that people often flock there for are cancelled and that events will instead be limited to religious rituals.
“For the second straight year, Bethlehem’s Christmas celebrations will be somber and muted, in deference to ongoing war in Gaza,” Time Magazine reports.
“There will be no giant Christmas tree in Manger Square, no raucous scout marching bands, no public lights twinkling and very few public decorations or displays.”
“Last year before Christmas, we had more hope, but now again we are close to Christmas and we don’t have anything,” the owner of the Nativity Store, Rony Tabash, told Time.
The isolated Biblical town, which lies behind Israel’s large wall which separates the West Bank, has long relied on religious pilgrimage and tourism for its economic survival.