More than two billion Christians around the world are celebrating Christmas this week, but those celebrations look very different in the place where Jesus Christ was born. Christian leaders in Bethlehem, which is located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, decided to cancel public celebrations because of the devastating war in Gaza.
There was little joy in the Holy Land this year, and certainly little peace.
There was little joy in the Holy Land this year, and certainly little peace.
In the wake of Hamas’ brutal October 7 terror attack, neighborhoods across Gaza have come under sustained Israeli bombardment. The 800 to 1,000 Christians in Gaza are “under threat of extinction” from Israeli bombing, according to the Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb. “We know that within this generation, Christianity will cease to exist in Gaza,” said Raheb, the president of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem.
Tragedy has rocked Gaza’s tiny Christian community. An IDF rocket struck the Convent of the Sisters of Mother Theresa and two Christian women were shot dead while walking inside the grounds of the Holy Family Church on December 16, according to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. (The IDF has denied responsibility.)
“While Christians around the world are celebrating the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, Palestinian families in Gaza will be struggling to find food, shelter, and medicine, and trying to dig their loved ones out of the rubble,” Hassan El-Tayyab, legislative director for Middle East policy at the Quaker group Friends Committee on National Legislation, told MSNBC.
Cancelling Christmas in a Bethlehem is a drastic decision, one that should shock Christians around the world into paying attention to the pleas of Palestinian Christians.
“I always say we need to de-romanticize Christmas,” the Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem said in an interview with NPR about the cancellation of Christmas festivities. “In…
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