A giant Christmas tree adorned with red and gold baubles stands in the West Bank city of Bethlehem for the first time since 2022.<\/p>\n
The Palestinian city, revered by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus, had refrained from public Christmas celebrations over the past two years as war raged in Gaza.<\/p>\n
But as a precarious ceasefire in Gaza enters its second month, the city held a ceremony last night, lighting up the 20-metre tree at the edge of Manger Square.<\/p>\n
Thousands of Palestinians from across the West Bank and Israel filled the square, erupting in cheers when the tree’s lights were turned on shortly before 8pm.<\/p>\n
Randa Bsoul, a 67-year-old Palestinian from Haifa in Israel came to celebrate, watch and enjoy, because for several years we haven’t had the chance.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s war on Gaza has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and devastated life for millions, while also crippling tourism and tightening restrictions across the West Bank.<\/p>\n
Bethlehem residents say the past two years have been unbearable, with new checkpoints, economic collapse, displacement and continued Israeli raids despite a fragile truce.<\/p>\n
Bethlehem\u2019s mayor says the city\u2019s Christmas celebrations carry little meaning while Gaza continues to suffer, stressing that the pain of Gazans is shared by all Palestinians.<\/p>\n
Despite two years of hardship, locals hope the season will spark peace, relief and a sense of hope for those enduring the crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A giant Christmas tree adorned with red and gold baubles stands in the West Bank city of Bethlehem…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[30249,153,155,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-53931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-as-christmas-lights-return-to-bethlehem-palestinians-look-for-hope","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","11":"tag-bethlehem-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}