{"id":54392,"date":"2025-12-07T11:33:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T11:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/54392\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T11:33:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T11:33:16","slug":"bethlehem-christmas-lights-return-after-three-years-of-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/54392\/","title":{"rendered":"Bethlehem: Christmas lights return after three years of darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"news-content-image-with-caption\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/17650635037B9HQRYc6mVO2wM48tbpqvnE5Dfxjz.png\" alt=\"Screenshot\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"news-content-image-caption\">Screenshot<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of Palestinian Christians and Muslims gathered in Bethlehem&#8217;s Manger Square, in front of the Church of the Nativity on Saturday night, for the Christmas tree lighting ceremony &#8211; the first one in three years. There were hymns and prayers for peace in the two hour ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>Bethlehem, and the entire West Bank has suffered a severe economic crisis in recent years &#8211; the lack of tourists and pilgrims during the Covid pandemic and then the severe restrictions imposed by Israel more recently, forced many established shops and hotels to close. <\/p>\n<p>The city is hoping that the return of the Christmas lights will signal to the world that Bethlehem is once again open for business.<\/p>\n<p>LINKS<\/p>\n<p>Watch Al Jazeera&#8217;s report on MSN: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-in\/society-culture-and-history\/holidays-and-festivals\/christmas-in-bethlehem-city-lights-up-tree-for-first-time-in-two-years\/vi-AA1RQOcd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">www.msn.com\/en-in\/society-culture-and-history\/holidays-and-festivals\/christmas-in-bethlehem-city-lights-up-tree-for-first-time-in-two-years\/vi-AA1RQOcd<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For more information about Bethlehem see: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.friendsoftheholyland.org.uk\/bethlehem\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">www.friendsoftheholyland.org.uk\/bethlehem<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Screenshot Thousands of Palestinian Christians and Muslims gathered in Bethlehem&#8217;s Manger Square, in front of the Church of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-54392","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\/54392","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=54392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}