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Bethlehem puts a cheerful face on daunting challenge of Israeli occupation

‘From Bethlehem to the world; the spirit of Christmas brings us together’. (AFP)
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Updated 25 December 2022
Mohammed Najib
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Bethlehem puts a cheerful face on daunting challenge of Israeli occupation

  • The municipality expects to receive 100,000 religious tourists over the Christmas season alone
  • Many Palestinian Christians are unable to visit as Israeli authorities frequently deny travel permits
Updated 25 December 2022
Mohammed Najib

RAMALLAH, PALESTINE: Despite the imminent emergence of a radical-right government in Israel, in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem residents and visitors alike had been preparing to celebrate Christmas, with tens of thousands of pilgrims and religious tourists joining the festivities this year.

The municipality, which recognizes the religious and historical importance of the city for Christians worldwide, dubbed this year’s events: “From Bethlehem to the world; the spirit of Christmas brings us together.”

Preparations began in the West Bank four months ago. At the time, Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Hanania called on “all the faithful and peace-loving peoples of the world” to visit Bethlehem and Palestine and make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to practice their faith and religious rites.”

He told Arab News: “Bethlehem wears a new suit of joy, and hope has returned to the hearts of the city’s citizens after a long absence; we look forward to a distinguished Christmas this year.”

Bethlehem is home to about 30,000 people. While the city is Muslim-majority, it has a deep-rooted Christian community. The city is considered sacred, as it is the birthplace of Jesus Christ in the Gospels.




Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Hanania called on “all the faithful and peace-loving peoples of the world” to visit Bethlehem. (AFP)

Thousands of local Christians and foreign pilgrims flock to Bethlehem on Dec. 24 every year to receive the procession of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, who arrives at the Church of the Nativity to preside over midnight mass.

The mass, which is attended by the Palestinian president and prime minister, international figures, prominent Arab diplomats, ambassadors and consuls, is broadcast on television around the world.

Ahead of the Christmas holidays, trees are decorated and brightly lit in the main squares of Palestine’s cities. Scout troops march along the main streets, playing drums and bagpipe music. In the evening hours, Santa Claus’ procession passes by.

In the weeks before Christmas, markets spring up in Christian-populated towns. Here, Christians can buy food and gift items. Muslims share in the festivities with their Christian friends and neighbors.

The number of tourists visiting Bethlehem has recovered since the easing of pandemic restrictions. As more than 50 percent of the city’s income depends on tourism, these numbers are good news for the craftsmen, tour guides and other hospitality industry professionals.

Today, Bethlehem has 56 hotels, including 4,500 hotel rooms, that can accommodate 9,000 people, 100 antique stores, 400 traditional crafts workshops and 20 large tourist restaurants.

Although the Palestinian Central Statistics Center estimates that Bethlehem’s tourism sector lost $1.5 billion in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, this season could see a significant comeback.




Bethlehem has 56 hotels, including 4,500 hotel rooms, that can accommodate 9,000 people, 100 antique stores, 400 traditional crafts workshops and 20 large tourist restaurants. (Supplied)

Elias Al-Arja, owner of the Bethlehem Hotel, told Arab News that his and other venues across town are fully booked as crowds of religious tourists flock to the city for Christmas.

“We are delighted with the return of tourism to Bethlehem despite the difficult security situation in the Palestinian Territories and the Ukraine war,” said Al-Arja, who predicts tourism will return to pre-pandemic levels in 2023.

The Palestinian Authority has deployed hundreds of security personnel in Bethlehem for the occasion.

Palestinian police spokesman Brig. Gen. Zneid Abu Zneid told Arab News that 1,500 security personnel, under the supervision of the police commander, Major General Youssef Al-Hilew, are on duty to protect the public.

Ghadir Najar, an architect from East Jerusalem, told Arab News that Christians in Jerusalem resist Israeli restrictions preventing their freedom of movement. She says she and her family will go to Bethlehem on Saturday to participate in midnight mass.

The number of Christians in the Palestinian Territories is falling, said Najar, as large numbers have emigrated to Sweden and the US in recent years in search of opportunities. Bethlehem is among the poorest cities in the Palestinian Territories.

Palestinian Christians predominantly live in Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Ramallah and Bir Zeit. Others live in the towns and villages of Nazareth, Haifa and Galilee inside Israel.




Preparations began in the West Bank four months ago. (Supplied)

According to the latest official data, their numbers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are about 42,000, with a further 140,000 living inside Israel. Their number in Ramallah is 11,000, with 2,000 of them natives of the city and 9,000 having migrated there from elsewhere in Palestine.

Nazih Dahdal, owner of the Beauty Inn Hotel in Ramallah, told Arab News that religious tourism made up about 80 percent of the tourism market in the Palestinian Territories this year.

These tourists primarily hail from France, Italy, Germany, Turkiye and the US. He says the number of domestic tourists — Palestinians living in Israel — has fallen due to the security situation in the West Bank.

Dahdal says he will not hold a New Year’s Eve party as he did in previous years, fearing clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces will force him to cancel.

Despite the difficult security situation, the lobby of the Beauty Inn Hotel is decorated with a giant Christmas tree.

“Previously, Christmas had a better presence and flavor than today,” Dahdal said. “But aspects of Christmas today are better, especially with the participation of Christians from other cities in the Palestinian Territories.”
 

Topics: Christmas 2022

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Israeli demolitions rip through Palestinian area of Jerusalem

Updated 4 sec ago
AFP
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Israeli demolitions rip through Palestinian area of Jerusalem

Updated 4 sec ago
AFP
JERUSALEM: Tired and sad, Palestinian activist Fakhri Abu Diab stood amid the rubble of his home in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, just a narrow valley away from the famed domes of the Old City.
In early November, bulldozers from the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem municipality tore down his house in the Silwan neighborhood for a second time, citing unauthorized construction.
“They want to expel us from the area,” said the 62-year-old, who has organized protests against the demolitions in Silwan’s Al-Bustan area.
The destruction of homes built without permits — which campaigners say are nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain due to Israel’s restrictive planning policy — has roiled east Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied West Bank for years.
Abu Diab’s house was among around 115 Palestinian residential properties marked for demolition by the Jerusalem municipality, which controls both the city’s Jewish-majority western part and its Palestinian-majority east, occupied by Israel since 1967.
“They want to erase our presence and drive us out,” Abu Diab told AFP.
“But we will stay in Al-Bustan, even in a tent or under a tree.”
The municipality says it aims to address “illegal construction, allow the construction of proper infrastructure and new public buildings for the neighborhood’s residents,” as well as to create green space.
But Israeli rights group Ir Amim said Israeli authorities often abuse the designation of areas in east Jerusalem as national parks or open spaces.
The group, fighting against demolitions, said the practice is “designed to suppress” Palestinian development “while enabling the seizure of their lands for Israeli interests.”


The status of Jerusalem remains one of the most contentious issues in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Israel conquered east Jerusalem, including the Old City, in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and swiftly annexed the area.
Silwan begins at the foot of the Old City walls where the Bible says the City of David was located, after the Israelite king conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites.
Today, hundreds of Israeli settlers live among nearly 50,000 Palestinians in Silwan.
The settlers’ homes are distinguished by Israeli flags flying from rooftops and windows as well as ubiquitous security cameras.
Meanwhile, Palestinians in east Jerusalem face a housing crisis, unable to build without permits amid a rapidly growing population.
Abu Diab’s house was first demolished in February. He rebuilt it, but it was destroyed again in November.
“This time, they wore me out,” he said, visibly exhausted.
“The original house was built in the 1950s. I was born, raised, married and raised my children here.”
But now, Abu Diab said that “even my children had to rent outside Silwan.”
Now, next to his flattened home, Abu Diab lives in a caravan, which is also under threat of demolition.
He and some of his neighbors rejected an offer from the municipality to relocate to another Palestinian neighborhood in northern Jerusalem.
Near the ruins of Abu Diab’s home, 42-year-old day laborer Omar Al-Ruwaidi sat by a fire with his son, surrounded by the rubble of his own demolished home and those of four of his brothers.
“About 30 people, including 12 children, are now homeless,” he said, his voice heavy with exhaustion.
“We’ve been battling this in court since 2004 and have spent tens of thousands (of Israeli shekels), but to no avail,” said Ruwaidi.
Several families who received demolition orders declined to speak to AFP, citing a fear of retribution.


According to Ir Amim, demolitions in east Jerusalem have surged to unprecedented levels since the start of the Gaza war, which was sparked by a surprise Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Between January and November 2024, 154 homes were demolished across the area, the group said.
On November 13, bulldozers destroyed the Al-Bustan Association community center, whose director said it served 1,500 Palestinian residents, mostly teenagers.
“The association provided various services to its members, including skill-building, capacity enhancement as well as sports and cultural training,” said director Qutaiba Ouda.
“It was a safe haven and a cultural lifeline in a neighborhood with no community centers.”
Ouda lamented the loss, saying that the Israeli authorities did not just destroy a building, but “our memories, dreams and hard work.”
Following the demolition, France, which had supported activities at the association, demanded an explanation from Israel.
Kinda Baraka, 15, was among those who frequented the association.
“It was our safe space,” she said.
“When it was destroyed, I cried a lot. It felt like they could come and demolish my home next.”
Baraka said she believed the demolitions aimed to push out Palestinians in favor of settlers.
Ruwaidi echoed those fears, but remained defiant.
“We will not leave Silwan. Outside Silwan, we cannot breathe,” he said.

Gaza mediators intensify ceasefire efforts, Israeli strikes kill 16 people

Updated 4 min 15 sec ago
Reuters
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Gaza mediators intensify ceasefire efforts, Israeli strikes kill 16 people

Updated 4 min 15 sec ago
Reuters

CAIRO: The United States, joined by Arab mediators, sought on Wednesday to conclude an agreement between Israel and Hamas to halt the 14-month-old war in the Gaza Strip where medics said Israeli strikes killed at least 16 Palestinians overnight.
On Tuesday, sources close to the talks in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, said an agreement could be signed in coming days on a ceasefire and release of hostages held in Gaza in return for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Medics said an Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 people in a house in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, where army forces have operated since October, while six were killed in separate airstrikes in Gaza City, Nuseirat camp in central areas, and Rafah near the border with Egypt.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military spokesman.
The US administration, joined by mediators from Egypt and Qatar, has made intensive efforts in recent days to advance the talks before President Joe Biden leaves office next month.
On Wednesday, a Palestinian official close to the negotiations said mediators had narrowed gaps on most of the agreement’s clauses but he said Israel had introduced conditions which Hamas rejected. He would not elaborate.
CIA Director William Burns was due in Doha on Wednesday for talks with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on bridging remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas, other knowledgeable sources said. The CIA declined to comment.
Israeli negotiators were in Doha on Monday looking to bridge gaps between Israel and Hamas on a deal Biden outlined in May.
There have been repeated rounds of talks over the past year, all of which have failed, with Israel insisting on retaining a military presence in Gaza and Hamas refusing to release hostages until the troops pulled out.
The war in Gaza, triggered by a Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw more than 250 abducted as hostages, has sent shockwaves across the Middle East and left Israel isolated internationally.
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of the 2.3 million population and reduced much of the coastal enclave to ruins.

Topics: War on Gaza

First flight since Assad’s fall takes off from Damascus airport

Updated 55 min 2 sec ago
AFP
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First flight since Assad’s fall takes off from Damascus airport

Updated 55 min 2 sec ago
AFP

DAMASCUS: The first flight since the ouster of Syria’s president Bashar Assad took off on Wednesday from Damascus airport to Aleppo in the country’s north, AFP journalists saw.
Thirty-two people including journalists were on board the plane.

Assad fled Syria as a lightning rebel offensive wrested from his control city after city. 

His army and security forces abandoned Damascus airport on December 8, and until Wednesday no flights had taken off or landed.
Earlier this week, airport staff were painting on planes the three-star independence flag that became a symbol of the 2011 uprising and which the country's new rulers have adopted.
In the terminal, the new flag also replaced the one linked to Assad's era.

Topics: Fall of Assad Damascus Airport flight

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Syria ex-HTS military chief says to dissolve armed wing

Updated 18 December 2024
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Syria ex-HTS military chief says to dissolve armed wing

  • Abu Qasra called on the international community to “find a solution” to repeated Israeli strikes and an “incursion” into Syrian territory.
Updated 18 December 2024
AFP

LATAKIA: The military chief of Syria’s victorious Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham said on Tuesday it would be “the first” to dissolve its armed wing and integrate into the armed forces.
“In any state, all military units must be integrated into this institution,” Murhaf Abu Qasra, known by his nom de guerre Abu Hassan Al-Hamawi, said in an interview with AFP, adding that “we will be, God willing, among the first to take the initiative (to dissolve our armed wing).”
He added that Kurdish-held areas of Syria would be integrated under the country’s new leadership, adding that the group rejects federalism and that “Syria will not be divided.”
“The Kurdish people are one of the components of the Syrian people... Syria will not be divided and there will be no federal entities,” he said.
A US-backed, Kurdish-led administration controls swathes of north and northeastern Syria, and has recently been battling Turkish-backed groups which have captured several Kurdish towns.
Abu Qasra also called on the international community to “find a solution” to repeated Israeli strikes and an “incursion” into Syrian territory.
“We view the Israeli strikes on military sites and the incursion into southern Syria as injust... we call on the international community to find a solution to this matter,” he said.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on Syrian military assets in what it says is a bid to prevent them falling into hostile hands.
It has also sent troops into the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights.
Abu Qasra also called on Western governments to lift the “terrorist” designation from HTS and its leader Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, now using his real name Ahmed Al-Sharaa.
“We call on the United States and all countries to lift this designation... on his person and the whole group,” he said, describing it as “unjust” and saying that the group “will ultimately be integrated into state institutions.”
The radical Sunni Islamist group has been proscribed as a terrorist organization by Western governments including the United States and Britain.
It has recently sought to moderate its rhetoric and assure the international community that religious and other minorities will be protected.

Topics: Fall of Assad

Sudan’s doctors bear brunt of war as healthcare falls apart

Women with children wait for medical care at the Italian Paediatric Hospital in Port Sudan on October 8, 2024. (AFP)
Updated 18 December 2024
AFP
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Sudan’s doctors bear brunt of war as healthcare falls apart

  • The violence has turned the country's hospitals into battlegrounds, placing health workers like Moussa on the frontlines
Updated 18 December 2024
AFP

CAIRO, Egypt: Sudanese doctor Mohamed Moussa has grown so accustomed to the constant sound of gunfire and shelling near his hospital that it no longer startles him. Instead, he simply continues attending to his patients.
"The bombing has numbed us," the 30-year-old general practitioner told AFP by phone from Al-Nao hospital, one of the last functioning medical facilities in Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum.
Gunfire rattles in the distance, warplanes roar overhead and nearby shelling makes the ground tremble, more than a year and a half into a grinding war between rival Sudanese generals.
Embattled health workers "have no choice but to continue", said Moussa.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a war between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The war has killed tens of thousands and uprooted 12 million people, creating what the International Rescue Committee aid group has called the "biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded".
The violence has turned the country's hospitals into battlegrounds, placing health workers like Moussa on the frontlines.
Inside Al-Nao's overwhelmed wards, the conflict's toll is staggering.
Doctors say they tend to a harrowing array of injuries: gunshot wounds to the head, chest and abdomen, severe burns, shattered bones and amputations -- even among children as young as four months.
The hospital itself has not been spared.
Deadly shelling has repeatedly hit its premises, according to medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) which has supported the Al-Nao hospital.
Elsewhere, the situation is just as dire. In North Darfur, a recent drone attack killed nine at the state capital's main hospital, while shelling forced MSF to evacuate its field hospital in a famine-hit refugee camp.

Sudan's healthcare system, already struggling before the war, has now all but crumbled.
Of the 87 hospitals in Khartoum state, nearly half suffered visible damage between the start of the war and August 26 this year, according to satellite imagery provided and analysed by Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab and the Sudanese American Physicians Association.
As of October, the World Health Organization had documented 119 confirmed attacks on healthcare facilities across Sudan.
"There is a complete disregard for civilian protection," said Kyle McNally, MSF's humanitarian affairs advisor.
He told AFP that an ongoing "broad-spectrum attack on healthcare" includes "widespread physical destruction, which then reduces services to the floor -- literally and figuratively".
The national doctors' union estimates that in conflict zones across Sudan, up to 90 percent of medical facilities have been forced shut, leaving millions without access to essential care.
Both sides of the conflict have been implicated in attacks on healthcare facilities.
The medical union said that 78 health workers have been killed since the war began, by gunfire or shelling at their workplaces or homes.
"Both sides believe that medical staff are cooperating with the opposing faction, which leads to their targeting," union spokesperson Sayed Mohamed Abdullah told AFP.
"There is no justification for targeting hospitals or medical personnel. Doctors... make no distinction between one patient and another."

According to the doctors' union, the RSF has raided hospitals to treat their wounded or search for enemies, while the army has conducted air strikes on medical facilities across the country.
On November 11, MSF suspended most activities at Bashair Hospital, one of South Khartoum's few functioning hospitals, after fighters stormed the facility and shot dead another fighter being treated there.
MSF officials say they believe the fighters to be RSF combatants.
In addition to the endless stream of war casualties, Sudan's doctors scramble to respond to another threat: mass starvation.
In a paediatric hospital in Omdurman, across the Nile from Khartoum, malnourished children arrive in droves.
Between mid-August and late October, the small hospital was receiving up to 40 children a day, many in critical condition, according to one doctor.
"Every day, three or four of them would die because their cases were very late stage and complicated, or due to a shortage of essential medicines," said the physician, requesting anonymity for safety concerns.
Sudan has for months teetered on the edge of famine, with nearly 26 million people -- more than half the population -- facing acute hunger, according to the UN.
Adnan Hezam, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said there must be "immediate support in terms of supplies and human resources to medical facilities".
Without it, "we fear a rapid deterioration" in already limited services, he told AFP.
To Moussa, the doctor, some days feel "unbearable".
"But we can't stop," he said.
"We owe it to the people who depend on us."
 

Topics: Sudan conflict

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