BETHLEHEM, West Bank — In the little town of Bethlehem, Christmas this year is barely a whisper.
Palestinian scouts paraded through the streets but without their traditional instruments of drums, horns and bagpipes. There was no jubilant countdown to the lighting of the Christmas tree in the main square. In fact, there is no Christmas tree at all.
Bethlehem is facing its second bleak Christmas since the outbreak of the war in Gaza — leaving faith leaders and residents grappling with how to mark the festive holiday while fellow Palestinians continue to be killed.
“Bethlehem is the capital of Christmas. It’s supposed to be the best time of the year. None of that is happening because we’re mourning,” Rev. Munther Isaac, the pastor of Bethlehem’s Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, told NBC News.
Next to the altar where Isaac delivers sermons is an unusual Nativity scene: For the second Christmas in a row, the baby Jesus is wrapped in a keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian scarf, and nestled on a pile of rubble. It serves as a reminder of the thousands of Palestinian children killed in Israeli strikes during the war, Isaac said. “We see Jesus in every child pulled from under the rubble in Gaza.”
Aside from the suffering in Gaza, Bethlehem faces its own challenges.
Its economy is heavily dependent on tourism but few foreign visitors are coming to the city in the occupied West Bank amid the war sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. That is compounding economic misery that began with the Covid pandemic, which also devastated the tourism industry.
“Honestly, it’s a desert,” said Rony Tabash, whose family has run a gift store near the Church of the Nativity for nearly a century. “There are no pilgrims, there are no tourists.” At the worst points, he said he had gone two months without making a single sale.
Meanwhile, an Israeli-built wall partially encircles Bethlehem, cutting it off from Jerusalem and stifling home-building and urban growth. Israel says the wall is a necessary security measure to stop suicide bombings. But in 2004, the International Court of Justice determined it was illegal under international law.
The hardship means many young people are leaving Bethlehem and moving abroad in search of a better future — raising fears that the Christian community in the city where the faith was born will dwindle and might one day disappear.
“We are very, very concerned,” Isaac said. “This is beyond the dangerous point.”
Life is no easier for elderly Christians. At the home of 79-year-old Nuha Tarazi, her landline phone beeps harshly as an attempted call to her relatives in Gaza once again fails to connect.
“That’s why I didn’t put up the Christmas tree,” the widowed grandmother said. “I would not feel well if I did that while they’re suffering there.”
Tarazi was born in Gaza City but has lived in Bethlehem for nearly 40 years. Four of her siblings were still alive in the Strip when the war broke out more than a year ago. But she said one of her sisters had been killed in an Israeli strike and a brother had died of untreated kidney disease as Gaza’s health care system collapsed.
Her two surviving siblings — sister, Samhiaa Azzam, and brother, Atallah Tarazi — are among hundreds of Christians sheltering at the Holy Family, a Catholic church in the ruins of Gaza City. Families fall asleep to the thump of nearby airstrikes and the constant whine of an Israeli drone overhead.
“We constantly ask God to protect us and safeguard us from all evil,” said Atallah, 77, a retired surgeon who once travelled the world but now rarely leaves the church compound and sleeps in a cot in a crowded storage room.
During a visit in Gaza by NBC News, Samhiaa and Atallah placed a call to their sister Nuha in Bethlehem. This time the call connected.
“Happy New Year, may you be in peace,” Samhiaa, 74, told her sister over the crackly line, urging her to celebrate Christmas despite everything. “My greetings to everyone, rejoice as much as you can. Rejoice.”