On Christmas Eve, Bethlehem resembles a ghost town; celebrations are halted due to Israel-Hamas war
Bethlehem (West Bank), Dec 24: The normally bustling biblical birthplace of Jesus resembled a ghost town on Sunday, as Christmas Eve celebrations in Bethlehem were called off due to the Israel-Hamas war.
The festive lights and Christmas tree that normally decorate Manger Square were missing, as were the throngs of foreign tourists and jubilant youth marching bands that gather in the West Bank town each year to mark the holiday. Dozens of Palestinian security forces patrolled the empty square.
"This year, without the Christmas tree and without lights, there's just darkness," said Brother John Vinh, a Franciscan monk from Vietnam who has lived in Jerusalem for six years.
He said he always comes to Bethlehem to mark Christmas, but this year was especially sobering, as he gazed at a nativity scene in Manger Square with a baby Jesus wrapped in a white shroud, reminiscent of the thousands of children killed in the fighting in Gaza. Barbed wire surrounded the scene, the grey rubble reflecting none of the joyous lights and bursts of colour that normally fill the square during the Christmas season.
The cancellation of Christmas festivities is a severe blow to the town's economy. Tourism accounts for an estimated 70% of Bethlehem's income almost all of that during the Christmas season.
With many major airlines cancelling flights to Israel, few foreigners are visiting. Local officials say over 70 hotels in Bethlehem have been forced to close, leaving thousands of people unemployed.
Gift shops were slow to open on Christmas Eve, although a few did once the rain had stopped pouring down. There were few visitors, however.
"We can't justify putting out a tree and celebrating as normal, when some people (in Gaza) don't even have houses to go to," said Ala'a Salameh, one of the owners of Afteem Restaurant, a family-owned falafel restaurant just steps from the square.
Salameh said Christmas Eve is usually the busiest day of the year. "Normally, you can't find a single chair to sit, we're full from morning till midnight," said Salameh. This year, just one table was taken, by journalists taking a break from the rain.
Under a banner that read "Bethlehem's Christmas bells ring for a cease-fire in Gaza," a few teenagers offered small inflatable Santas, but no one was buying. Instead of their traditional musical march through the streets of Bethlehem, young scouts stood silently with flags. A group of local students unfurled a massive Palestinian flag as they stood in silence.
"Our message every year on Christmas is one of peace and love, but this year it's a message of sadness, grief and anger in front of the international community with what is happening and going on in the Gaza Strip," Bethlehem's mayor, Hana Haniyeh, said in an address to the crowd.
Over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 50,000 wounded during Israel's air and ground offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers, according to health officials there, while some 85% of the territory's 2.3 million residents have been displaced.
The war was triggered by Hamas' deadly assault Oct 7 on southern Israel in which the group killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took more than 240 hostages.
The Gaza war has been accompanied by a surge in violence, with some 300 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire.
The fighting has affected life across the West Bank. Since Oct 7, access to Bethlehem and other Palestinian towns in the Israeli-occupied territory has been difficult, with long lines of motorists waiting to pass military checkpoints. The restrictions have also prevented tens of thousands of Palestinians from exiting the territory to work in Israel.
Amir Michael Giacaman opened his store, "Il Bambino," which sells olive wood carvings and other souvenirs, for the first time since Oct 7. There have been no tourists, and few local residents have money to spare because those who worked in Israel have been stuck at home.
"When people have extra money, they go buy food," said his wife, Safa Giacaman. "This year, we're telling the Christmas story. We're celebrating Jesus, not the tree, not Santa Claus," she said, as their daughter Makaella ran around the deserted store.
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Israel detains director of one of northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals, Palestinians say
Deir al-Balah, Dec 28: Israel's army detained the director of one of northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals as overnight strikes in the territory killed nine people, including children, Palestinian medical officials said Saturday.
Gaza's Health Ministry said Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was arrested by Israeli forces Friday along with dozens of other staff and taken to an interrogation centre. The ministry said Israeli troops stormed the hospital and forced many staff and patients outside and told them to strip in winter weather, according to the ministry.
Israel's army didn't respond to questions about the director. On Friday, it denied it had entered or set fire to the hospital complex but acknowledged it had ordered people outside, and said it was conducting operations against Hamas infrastructure and its members in the area.
The military repeated claims that Hamas group operate inside Kamal Adwan but provided no evidence. Hospital officials have denied that.
The hospital has been hit multiple times over the past three months by Israeli troops waging an offensive in largely isolated northern Gaza against Hamas fighters it says have regrouped. The health ministry said a strike on the hospital earlier this week killed five medical personnel.
MedGlobal, the humanitarian organisation for which Abu Safiya worked, said Friday it was gravely concerned about him. It said the incident follows the October detention of five other staff, calling it an “alarming and egregious pattern of targeting medical personnel and spaces.”
Israel's nearly 15-month-old campaign of bombardment and ground offensives has devastated Gaza's health sector. The World Health Organisation has said the raid on Kamal Adwan has put northern Gaza's last major health facility “out of service" after growing restrictions on access, adding that “this horror must end and health care must be protected.”
The Health Ministry said conditions for Kamal Adwan patients who were relocated to the damaged Indonesian Hospital nearby — also raided in the past — were “extremely difficult.”
The war has killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, over half of them women and children, and wounded more than 108,000 others, according to the Health Ministry. Its count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Since October, Israel's offensive has virtually sealed off the northern Gaza areas of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and leveled large parts of them. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were forced out but thousands are believed to remain in the area where Kamal Adwan and two other hospitals are located.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after the groups Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel in which they killed around 1,200 people and abducted some 250 others. Some 100 Israelis remain captive in Gaza, around a third believed to be dead.
Israel continued attacks across Gaza on Saturday. An overnight strike killed at least nine people in Maghazi, including women and children, according to staff at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where they were taken and an Associated Press reporter who saw the bodies.
Men cried as the bodies, wrapped in bloodied white plastic, lay on the floor of the morgue.
The Health Ministry said Saturday that 48 people had been killed in the past 24 hours by Israeli fire.
Meanwhile, Israel said its troops had begun operating in the northern city of Beit Hanoun, citing intelligence that fighters and Hamas infrastructure were in the area.
Strikes also continued in Israel. Air raid sirens sounded early Saturday and the military said it intercepted a missile fired by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Israeli warplanes bombed key infrastructure in Yemen again on Thursday. The Houthis also have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea and say they won't stop until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza.
