Christmas in Bethlehem


December 22, 2016
Sarah Benton


Bethlehem prepares for Christmas December 21, 2016

Palestinians in the West Bank city of Bethlehem have been getting ready for the annual Christmas celebrations. They expect international pilgrims to fill the city’s hotels after a two-year lull due to violence in the West Bank and the war in Gaza.

Despite a lack of funding to restore the world-famous Church of the Nativity and competition from Israeli tour operators, locals are determined to draw visitors and promote Palestine beyond religious sites. Photo, caption and video below from Palestine Monitor


Preparing the tree, Manger Square, Bethlehem. Photo by Musa Al Shaer/ AFP

With violence at low, Bethlehem booked with Christmas visitors

Israel’s Tourism Ministry says some 120,000 visitors expected in December, half of them Christians

By AFP
December 22, 2016

BETHLEHEM — Preparations for Christmas are in full swing at the site of Jesus’s birthplace, with Bethlehem shops, hotels and church officials bracing for more visitors than 2015, when violence put a damper on celebrations.

At Manger Square next to the Church of the Nativity, built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was born, the annual giant Christmas tree covered in gold ornaments is in place.

A handful of Palestinians could be seen taking pictures near the tree on Wednesday while a number of tourists were walking around the city, located a short drive from Jerusalem in the West Bank.

Celebrations in Bethlehem culminate with midnight mass on Christmas eve in the Church of the Nativity.

But beyond that, tens of thousands of tourists are expected to visit sites including Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Nazareth over the holidays, tourism officials say.

Israel’s Tourism Ministry said some 120,000 visitors were expected in December, half of them Christians.

Lighting incense at the Church of the Nativity December 20, 2016. Photo by Musa Al Shaer/ AFP

 

 

Palestinian officials said they were expecting more visitors than last year, with hotels in Bethlehem booked.

“There is more stability this year and the numbers coming out of the tourism ministry are showing that there will be growth between 2015 and 2016,” said Sami Khoury, who runs the Visit Palestine online tourism portal.

“There are more bookings this year. A lot of people are coming this month and the hotels are booked.”

Khoury was not able to provide specific figures.

There is more optimism this year in Israel and the West Bank after a wave of Palestinian terrorism, violence and protests that erupted in October 2015 sharply reduced visits for Christmas.

From October 2015 to October 2016, 36 Israelis, two Americans and an Eritrean national were killed in Palestinian stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks.

Lighting a candle at the Church of the Nativity, believed to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on December 20, 2016. Photo by Musa Al Shaer/ AFP

According to AFP figures, some 238 Palestinians, a Jordanian and a Sudanese migrant were killed during the violent spurt, most of them in the course of carrying out attacks, Israel says, and many of the others in clashes with troops in the West Bank and at the Gaza border, as well as in Israeli airstrikes in the Strip.

The violence has greatly subsided in recent months, though tourists will still have to cross Israel’s West Bank security barrier to reach Bethlehem.

For Wahid Al-Laham, a Bethlehem shop owner selling Christmas memorabilia and decorations, shopping has been better than last year but still falls short in comparison to previous years.

Christmas shopping “was half the rate of previous years, but 80 percent higher than compared to 2015,” he said.

Christian ‘tragedy’

But while Israel and the West Bank have seen less violence this year, Christians across the wider Middle East were facing a “tragedy,” a leading church figure said in Jerusalem on Monday.

Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, pointed specifically to Syria and Iraq.

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem heads the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land.

Pizzaballa said up to two-thirds of Christians have left Iraq and Syria, citing in particular Aleppo — the previously mixed city in northern Syria which has been devastated by more than five years of civil war.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

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