Thousands attend Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Bethlehem, first since Gaza war began

Thousands of people came from neighboring towns and villages to attend Bethlehem’s annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the city’s historic Manger Square. Historically an event filled with joy and wonder, it was the first such ceremony since the war in Gaza started in 2023. But hardly any tourists were present.

For more than two years, international tourists and Christian pilgrims largely stayed away following Hamas’ deadly terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023. As the war in Gaza raged, church leaders canceled public Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem.

But this year, for the mayor of Bethlehem, Maher Canawati, the Ceasefire negotiated by the Trump administration That was reason enough to try to take the faithful back to where the Christmas story began.

“Bethlehem, you know, we live off tourists, tourism and pilgrims who come to stay in our hotels, eat in our restaurants, buy our souvenirs that we produce here,” Canawati said. “And there’s been a complete shutdown of tourism over the last couple of years.”

Inside the 4th-century Church of the Nativity, one of the oldest and most sacred Christian sites in the world, about 15,000 visitors arrived each day during peacetime. The absence of tourists has devastated Bethlehem’s tourism industry and almost its entire economy, leading to unemployment of up to 70 percent. Hotel vacations have reached record levels.

Muhammad Abu Jurah’s family has operated a gift shop in Bethlehem for generations. But over the past two years, he has been forced to lay off his six employees.

“We don’t have a lot of tourists because of, you know, the war,” he said. “That’s why they have a big problem in Bethlehem without tourists.”

Matthew Qasis, who has worked as a tour guide in Bethlehem his entire adult life, says he has never seen the neighborhood so quiet.

His message to Christians around the world: “Come back, because Bethlehem belongs to everyone, and Bethlehem is a message of love and peace. A message needed more than ever and a prayer of hope for the faithful to return to the place where we believe Christmas began. »

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the highest leader of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, began celebrations Wednesday with a traditional procession from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, the Associated Press reported. Pizzaballa called for “a Christmas full of light”.

“After two years of darkness, we need light,” Pizzaballa told the crowd gathered in Manger Square, to whom the cardinal conveyed greetings from the small Christian community in Gaza, where he had celebrated an early Christmas mass on Sunday, the AP reported. “We all decide together to be the light, and the light of Bethlehem is the light of the world.”