Bethlehem, occupied West Bank – At Christmas, Noha Helmi Tarazi usually decorates her house with a large tree, which she describes as a symbol of light and joy.
The 87-year-old prepares the house for her family, who gather there every year, and prepares Christmas treats and large holiday meals. She usually leaves presents under the Christmas tree for her grandchildren, taking care to wrap them and label them with their names.
This year, no one will gather at her house. Even the children don’t want to party, she says.
“There is no more joy in our hearts,” she said.
In the birthplace of Jesus Christ, Christmas celebrations are suspended. The decision to cancel Christmas was not taken lightly, but it is a decision on which the Church and the community here are all united, to show solidarity with the Palestinians facing Israeli bombing and total siege of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli bombings and artillery fire have killed more than 20,000 people in Gaza since the war began on October 7, including at least 8,000 children. More than 300 people have also been killed in the occupied West Bank, either by Israeli soldiers or by settlers who often attack under the cover of Israeli troops.
The war has crippled Bethlehem’s tourism – a pillar of its economy – at a time of year when it usually reaches its peak. While visitors from around the world usually flock to Bethlehem’s markets around Christmas, the streets are empty this year.
But even if there were tourists, there would be no celebration among Bethlehem residents, many of whom have close family members in Gaza.
“How can we celebrate Christmas in the midst of this genocidal war? asks Tarazi, known to those close to her as Um Shadi. “How can we celebrate when people in Gaza struggle to get even one meal a day?
The images and news of the suffering in Gaza under Israel’s incessant bombing and ground invasion are too much for her. Um Shadi, whose family lives in Gaza City, said she was particularly disturbed by videos showing people fleeing to the sea and being forced to boil sea water to make it drinkable.
She grew up in the Remal neighborhood of Gaza City and lived there until the age of 20 in the 1960s. She has “lovely memories of the sea,” where she would swim at night. People lived in peace, she said.
Life became more difficult after she graduated with a degree in English literature from Cairo University in 1967. She was unable to return to Gaza because the Gaza Strip was occupied by Israel that year, and at the time Instead, she spent the next 10 years in Libya, where her brothers also lived and where she met her husband.
She eventually returned to the occupied West Bank, where she took up residence and built her Christmas rituals with her family – traditions she will ignore this year.
“This Christmas, may God have mercy on them”
All signs of Christmas have disappeared from the streets and houses of Bethlehem. Usually, people flock to the decorated Manger Square to watch the fireworks. None of that will happen this year.
Many people in and around Bethlehem have relatives in Gaza. Um Shadi herself has lost a brother and a sister since the start of the war.
His brother died on October 17 after being unable to undergo life-saving gallbladder surgery due to the aerial bombardment of hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
A few days later, one of his sisters died in an airstrike on the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius, where the family had taken refuge. Another sister lost a leg in the same bombing.
It has always been difficult to see her family, even before the war, but today she can barely speak to them because of telecommunications cuts in Gaza.
Um Shadi was unable to attend the funeral of another sister in the enclave before the war because she did not obtain a permit to go. Instead, her niece had to take a video of the ceremony for her.
In happier years, some Christians in Gaza were able to obtain a permit from Israeli authorities to travel from Gaza to Bethlehem at Christmas – something her sisters and friend Rose often did, she said.
“My sisters were visiting me and I say that this year, at Christmas, may God have mercy on them. »
The pain of not being able to communicate with her family in Gaza is unbearable, she adds. This brought her “to the brink of despair.”
Christmas used to be the one joyful event that everyone could count on every year, says Um Shadi. Now that too is gone.