Traditional festivities during the Christmas season have been called off in Bethlehem. The city in the Occupied West Bank usually attracts thousands of followers of the Christian faith over the period, because of its religious significance.
But this year residents in Bethlehem are mourning the killing and displacement of Palestinians in Gaza. Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim is in Bethlehem, where the war is having a profound impact on Christmas.
Christmas cancelled: US Palestinians feel no holiday joy amid war on Gaza
Christian Palestinians in the US are muting their holiday celebrations as they mourn the ongoing suffering in Gaza.
Ali Harb – Al Jazeera, December 13, 2023
Washington, DC – Huwaida Arraf’s house is usually the most brightly decorated in her Michigan neighbourhood at Christmas time.
But this year, with war raging in Gaza, the Palestinian American human rights lawyer is hanging only one sign in her front yard: “Bethlehem canceled Christmas because Israel is slaughtering Palestinians #GazaGenocide.”
Like many Palestinian Christians, Arraf is not celebrating the holiday this year. As the death toll in Gaza soars past 18,600, she and others Al Jazeera spoke to are struggling to enjoy the holiday season. Flashes of happiness — if they come — are often drenched in guilt.
“There is really no joy right now — no joy to be had, no joy that can be had,” Arraf, a mother of two who lives in the Detroit area, said.
“How can the world really celebrate Christmas and celebrate the birth of the prince of peace, when in the very homeland and the very place that he was born, there’s such atrocious crimes against humanity taking place and nothing is being done to stop it?”
Arraf is hardly alone. In the United States, activists and Palestinian Americans are taking cues from Palestine, where many churches and Christian communities have nixed their Christmas celebrations to honour the dead and protest the continuing Israeli violence… [+]
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