PHOTO Christmas Eve in the birthplace of Jesus Christ in the shadow of war: Without joy, lighting and Christmas festivities

Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ, marked another dark Christmas Eve today in the shadow of war in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Nowhere was there the merriment usually seen on the West Coast during Christmas Sunday. Holiday lighting and a giant tree that usually adorn Trg Jasle were missing, and there were no foreign tourists either.

Palestinian youths marched silently through the streets, some carrying signs that read: "We want life, not death."

Security forces set up barriers near the Church of the Nativity, a place of worship built on the site where Jesus is believed to have been born.

"The Bethlehem message is always a message of peace and hope," said Mayor Anton Salman. "And these days we are also sending our message to the world: peace and hope, insisting that the world must work to end the suffering of the Palestinian people."

The cancellation of Christmas festivities is a heavy blow to the city's economy. It is estimated that tourism accounts for about 70 percent of Bethlehem's income, almost all of it from the Christmas season. Salman said unemployment is about 50 percent, which is significantly higher than the 30 percent unemployment rate in the rest of the West Bank.

The number of visitors to the city has fallen from a pre-Covid peak of around two million a year in 2019 to less than 100.000 in 2024, a spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism said.

Latin Patriarch Pjerbatista Picabala, the highest Roman Catholic priest in the Holy Land, noted the closed shops and empty streets and expressed hope that next year will be better. On Sunday, Picabala held a special pre-Christmas mass in the Church of the Holy Family in the city of Gaza.

"This must be the last Christmas that is this sad," he told hundreds of people gathered in the square, where tens of thousands usually gather. "I bring you the greetings and prayers of our brothers and sisters in Gaza."

Bethlehem is an important place in the history of Christianity, but Christians make up only a small percentage of the approximately 14 million people throughout the Holy Land. There are about 182.000 Christians in Israel, 50.000 in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and 1.300 in Gaza, according to estimates by the US State Department.