Nuns could be seen watching from one roof, while many families including small children filled balconies and roofs to catch a glimpse of the tree lit up.<\/p>\n
Sounds of laughter filled the air as many could not help but smile despite moments of rain.<\/p>\n
“This event didn’t happen for the last two years because of the war and it’s quite emotional after two years of nothing but war and death,” said 50-year-old Liyu Lu, who had travelled from northern Israel, close to the border with Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Originally from China but now living in Israel for decades, she was with a group including Gary Lau, a travelling businessman and Christian staying in Jerusalem for the past couple of months.<\/p>\n
“Being here, with the festivities, is something very nice and special,” Lau, 51, said, adding he was “taking in the atmosphere”.<\/p>\n
For the past two years,\u00a0Bethlehem has celebrated Christmas in a more sombre manner, with no major public festivities.<\/p>\n
– Tentative return –<\/p>\n
Christian pilgrims, especially from Asia, South America and eastern Europe have, however, slowly returned in the past few months.<\/p>\n
Fabien Safar, guide and director of Terra Dei which organises pilgrimages to the Holy Land, said a few small groups would come for Christmas this year and he already saw some bookings for 2026.<\/p>\n
Safar expected a real recovery in 2027 but “this obviously depends on how the situation evolves” in Gaza and Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Despite a November 2024 ceasefire that was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and militant group Hezbollah, Israel has kept up strikes on Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Pilgrims “remain afraid because there’s no official end to the war” in Gaza, Safar said, adding they were also worried about the situation in Lebanon.<\/p>\n
– ‘Worse than Covid’ –<\/p>\n
But it has all taken a toll on Bethlehem, which had only just cheered the return of tourists in 2022 after the Covid pandemic, before the war in Gaza broke out.<\/p>\n
Bethlehem’s economy relies almost completely on tourism.<\/p>\n
“Covid was bad but nothing like the last two years,” said Shahen from the ceramic store.<\/p>\n
Many visitors from Israel and the Palestinian territories spent hours on the road to reach Bethlehem including musician Lu.<\/p>\n
She woke up at 6 am to get a bus at 7 am with a large group. They arrived at 12:30 pm, she said, without any trouble.<\/p>\n
War isn’t the only reason for Bethlehem’s woes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since the 2023 Hamas attack, it is more difficult to travel around the West Bank with long queues on the roads with Israeli military checkpoints.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nuns could be seen watching from one roof, while many families including small children filled balconies and roofs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-54730","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\/54730","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=54730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}