“Bethlehem is special at Christmas. It is so special in the Holy Land. Jesus was born here”, said Souad Handal, a 55-year-old tour guide from Bethlehem.
“It’s so bad (now) because the economy of Bethlehem, it depends on tourism.”
Joseph Giacaman, owner of one of Bethlehem’s best-located shops right on Manger Square, said he now only opens once or twice a week “to clean up”, for lack of customers.
“A lot of families lost their business because, you know, there are no tourists”, said Aboud, another souvenir shopkeeper, who didn’t give his last name.
Similarly, in Jerusalem’s Old City, just eight kilometres (five miles) away but on the other side of the separation wall built by Israel, the Christian quarter has eschewed traditional Christmas decorations.
The municipality has forgone its traditional Christmas tree at the main entrance to the neighbourhood, New Gate, and nativity scenes have been restricted to private properties.
Exodus
The tightening of security around Bethlehem since the start of the war, combined with economic difficulties, has led many local residents to leave.
“When you can’t offer your son his needs, I don’t think that you are going to stop just thinking how to offer it”, said Salman, the mayor.
Because of that, “a lot of people, during the last year, left the city”, he said, estimating that roughly 470 Christian families had moved out of the greater Bethlehem area.
However, the phenomenon is by no means restricted to Christians, who represented around 11 percent of the district’s about 215,000 inhabitants in 2017.
Father Frederic Masson, the Syrian Catholic priest for the Bethlehem parish, said that Christians and non-Christians alike had been leaving Bethlehem for a long time, but that “recent events have accelerated and amplified the process”.
In particular, “young people who can’t project themselves into the future” are joining the exodus, Masson said.
“When your future is confiscated by the political power in place… it kills hope”, he said.
Echoing Father Masson, Fayrouz Aboud, director of Bethlehem’s Alliance Francaise, a cultural institute that provides language courses, said that in current times “hope has become more painful than despair”.
With Israeli politicians increasingly talking of annexing the West Bank, she said many young people come to her to learn French and build skills that would allow them to live abroad.
Even her own 30-year-old son has raised the idea, telling her: “Come, let’s leave this place, (the Israelis) will come. They will kill us”.
© 2024 AFP
