{"id":53982,"date":"2025-12-07T00:44:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T00:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/53982\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T00:44:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T00:44:17","slug":"life-coming-back-to-bethlehem-as-christmas-celebrations-muted-by-war-return-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/53982\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Life coming back\u2019 to Bethlehem as Christmas celebrations muted by war return"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the past two Christmases, most businesses in the traditional birthplace of Jesus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank were shuttered and eerily empty.<\/p>\n

But on Saturday evening, crowds watched a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Manger Square and restaurants bustled with families and \u2013 a hopeful change in the Palestinian city that\u2019s been reeling since war broke out in Gaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like it was before the war,\u201d 30-year-old restaurant owner John Juka said. \u201cBut it\u2019s like life is coming back again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ManA man dressed as Father Christmas was among the crowds in Manger Square (Mahmoud Illean\/AP)<\/p>\n

Tourism and religious pilgrims have long been a prime economic engine for Bethlehem. Around 80% of the Muslim-majority city\u2019s residents live off it, according to the local government.<\/p>\n

Those earnings ripple out to communities across the West Bank, a territory long marked by economic precarity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we have 10,000 visitors and pilgrims sleeping in Bethlehem, that means the butcher is working, the supermarket is working and everybody is working,\u201d said city mayor Maher Nicola Canawati. \u201cThere\u2019s a ripple effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

That economic lifeline vanished when war broke out in Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel. Bethlehem\u2019s authorities cancelled major Christmas celebrations during Israel\u2019s retaliatory offensive in Gaza, whose health ministry has reported more than 70,000 Palestinians killed.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Israel\u2019s military scaled up operations in the West Bank, including communities near Bethlehem.<\/p>\n

The unemployment rate in the city jumped from 14% to 65%, the mayor said. Poverty soared, and about 4,000 people left in search of work.<\/p>\n

A United Nations report last month said the West Bank is going through its most severe economic downturn on record, citing the ongoing Israeli military operations.<\/p>\n

Now Bethlehem residents seek a comeback.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision we took was to reignite the spirit of Christmas and to reignite hope,\u201d the mayor said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this sends a great message to the whole world that we Palestinians love life and we are eagerly looking forward to a peaceful solution.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the past two Christmases, most businesses in the traditional birthplace of Jesus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-53982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","10":"tag-bethlehem-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53982","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=53982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}