Gaza war snuffs out Xmas celebrations in Bethlehem, East Jerusalem

Michael Jansen and Agence France-Presse

The little West Bank town of Bethlehem has cancelled all but religious observances this Christmas. The tall evergreen tree near the Church of the Nativity where tradition holds Jesus was born has not been strung with bright fairy lights. Manger Square wears no gay seasonal decorations.

Last night’s mass at the St. Catherine’s Church was attended by local folk and some visitors but foreign tourists and pilgrims who normally flock to Bethlehem for the holidays are few and far between.

The streets of the Christian Quarter of Old City of Jerusalem are devoid of decorations and largely empty. Voices of visitors echo in the hallowed halls of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built over the crypt where Jesus body was brought after his crucifixion by the Roman occupiers of Palestine.

Israel’s Gaza war has shut down Bethlehem and East Jerusalem. Churchmen, merchants, restaurant and hotel owners had hoped for a vibrant holiday season which stretches from early December until Orthodox Christmas on January 7th.

Last year, 120,000 pilgrims and tourists flocked to Bethlehem and East Jerusalem, hotels were fully booked, restaurants and cafes teemed with custom, and shops sold thousands of carved olive wood mementoes of the Holy Land.

Israel on Sunday pressed on with its war on Hamas in Gaza, shifting focus to the besieged territory’s south as a spiralling death toll has thrown a pall of gloom over Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.

US President Joe Biden stressed the “critical need” to protect civilians, in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” according to an official statement.

As heavy fighting raged on, the Israeli army said it had struck another 200 targets in the past 24 hours in the narrow Palestinian territory, where it is seeking to defeat Hamas and free hostages.

The army said 153 troops had died in Gaza since it launched its ground invasion on Oct.27. Ten soldiers were killed in battles on Saturday, one of the deadliest days for the Israeli side. “This is a difficult morning, after a very difficult day of fighting in Gaza,” said Netanyahu on Sunday. “The war is exacting a very heavy price... but we have no choice but to keep fighting.”

A priest walks through the Church of the Nativity in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday. Reuters

Israel’s withering military campaign, including massive aerial bombardment, has killed 20,424 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Vast areas of Gaza lie in ruins and its 2.4 million people have endured dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine due to an Israeli siege, alleviated only by the limited arrival of aid trucks.

Eighty per cent of Gazans have been displaced, according to the UN, many fleeing south and now shielding against the winter cold in makeshift tents.

Near the far southern Gaza city of Rafah, Umm Amir Abu Al Awf, 27, suffered wounds to her hand and legs in a strike on her house early on Sunday. “Who won?” she said. “Nothing has been achieved except killing civilians... They keep saying Rafah is safe. It is not safe. Nowhere is safe. Every house has a martyr and injured.”

‘More hatred, less peace:’ Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus indicated that forces were close to gaining control in northern Gaza and that now “we focus our efforts against Hamas in southern Gaza.”

Elsewhere, Palestinian rescuers scrambled again to pull survivors and bodies from the rubble of a destroyed residential building, after a strike hit in the central city of Deir Al Balah. “I was praying when a huge explosion occurred,” said Yazan Moqbel, a wounded man whose sister was still under the broken concrete. “Rubble fell on us. I didn’t know what happened.”

The head of the UN refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, urged an end to the suffering in the third month of the war.

“For aid to reach people in need, hostages to be released, more displacement to be avoided and above all stop the appalling loss of lives, a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza is the only way forward,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“War defies logic and humanity, and prepares a future of more hatred and less peace.”

And World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus similarly renewed calls for a ceasefire, saying: “The decimation of the Gaza health system is a tragedy.”

Ghebreyesus also hailed Gaza’s medical workers who continue their work under increasingly dire circumstances.

On Friday, the United States allowed the passage of a UN Security Council resolution that effectively called on Israel to allow “immediate, safe and unhindered” deliveries of life-saving aid to Gaza “at scale.”

Separately, a leading member of Islamic Jihad — which has been fighting alongside Hamas — said the group’s chief Ziad Nakhaleh arrived in Cairo for talks on a truce and hostage exchange, after the Hamas chief visited last week.

The Cairo talks would centre on “ways to end the Israeli aggression on our people,” said an Islamic Jihad official. The delegation will reaffirm the group’s position that any exchange of hostages will have to secure the release of all Palestinians jailed in Israel, “after a ceasefire is achieved,” the official said.