Belén prepares for a Christmas off, without the festive lights or the usual Christmas tree Christmas which rises above the Manger Square. The authorities of the traditional birthplace of Jesus decided to suspend the celebrations due to the war between Israel and Hamas.
The cancellation of the Christmas holidays, which usually attract thousands of visitors, is a serious blow to the city’s tourism-dependent economy. But the joyous celebration is unsustainable at a time of immense suffering for the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, declared Mayor Hana Haniyeh.
“The economy is collapsing,” Haniyeh told The Associated Press on Friday. “But if we compare it to what is happening to our people and to Gaza, it is nothing.”
More than 18,700 Palestinians have been killed and more than 50,000 injured during Israel’s devastating air and ground offensive against the rulers of Hamas in Gaza, according to health authorities there, while about 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced.
The war was triggered after the attack of Hamas on October 7 against southern Israel, in which fighters killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took more than 240 hostages.
Since October 7, access to Bethlehem and other Palestinian cities in the occupied West Bank Israel It has been difficult, and there are long lines of motorists waiting to pass through military checkpoints. The restrictions have also prevented many Palestinians from leaving the territory to work in Israel.
Municipal leaders worry about the impact of the closures on the small Palestinian economy in the West Bank, which is already suffering a drastic decline in tourism since the start of the war. The Palestinian tourism sector has suffered losses of $2.5 million a day, which will rise to $200 million by the end of the year, the Palestinian Minister of Tourism declared on Wednesday.
The annual Christmas celebrations in Belen —shared between the Armenian, Catholic and Orthodox religions—are a great boost for the city, where the Tourism represents 70% of its annual income. But the streets are empty this season.
Most major airlines have canceled their flights to Israeland more than 70 hotels in Bethlehem have been forced to close, leaving some 6,000 tourism employees out of work, according to Sami Thaljieh, director of the Sancta Maria hotel.
Source: Gestion
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