{"id":54342,"date":"2025-12-07T10:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T10:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/54342\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T10:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T10:33:10","slug":"christmas-lights-return-to-bethlehem-after-wartime-silence-dw-12-07-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/54342\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas lights return to Bethlehem after wartime silence \u2013 DW \u2013 12\/07\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>12\/07\/2025December 7, 2025<\/p>\n<p class=\"teaser-text l1evdo4u blt0baw s16w0xvi sngcpkw w128axg5 b1fzgn0z\">Manger Square, long venerated as Jesus&#8217; birthplace, came alive again after two quiet years marked by the war in Gaza. Thousands from across the occupied West Bank and Israel gathered for the Christmas tree lighting.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/p.dw.com\/p\/54tUr<\/p>\n<p>People attending the traditional Christmas tree lighting said the return of festivities brings a sense of relief and hope for peace.<\/p>\n<p>The impact of the <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/gaza-strip\/t-19074241\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gaza war<\/a> and tourist restrictions have weighed heavily on life\u00a0in the city of Bethlehem in the\u00a0<a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/occupied-west-bank\/t-38397942\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">occupied West Bank<\/a> over the past two years.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/tania-kr\u00e4mer\/person-36808087\" title=\"Tania Kr\u00e4mer\" tabindex=\"-1\" class=\"author-image s1qbhnaq b1fzgn0z\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" alt=\"Portrait of DW correspondent Tania Kr\u00e4mer\" class=\"lq-img\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" alt=\"Portrait of DW correspondent Tania Kr\u00e4mer\" title=\"Portrait of DW correspondent Tania Kr\u00e4mer\" class=\"hq-img\"\/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/tania-kr\u00e4mer\/person-36808087\" class=\"author-link sngcpkw btl76l3 e1eo633p w128axg5 b1fzgn0z\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tania Kr\u00e4mer<\/a> DW correspondent, author and reporter, based in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"12\/07\/2025December 7, 2025 Manger Square, long venerated as Jesus&#8217; birthplace, came alive again after two quiet years marked&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-54342","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\/54342","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=54342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}