Bethlehem, occupied West Bank – At Christmas, Noha Helmi Tarazi usually decorates her dwelling with a big tree, which she describes as a logo of sunshine and pleasure.
The 87-year-old prepares the home for her household, who collect right here annually, and makes Christmas sweets and huge, festive meals. She often locations presents beneath the Christmas tree for her grandchildren, taking care to wrap them and label them with their names.
This 12 months, nobody will collect in her dwelling. Even the youngsters don’t really feel like celebrating, she says.
“There is no joy left in our hearts,” she says.
In the birthplace of Jesus Christ, the celebrations for Christmas are on maintain. The determination to cancel Christmas has not been taken evenly, however it’s one the church and neighborhood listed below are all united on, to point out their solidarity with the Palestinians dealing with Israeli bombardment and a complete siege within the Gaza Strip.
Israeli bombing and artillery hearth have killed greater than 20,000 folks in Gaza for the reason that battle started on October 7, together with a minimum of 8,000 youngsters. More than 300 folks have been killed within the occupied West Bank, too, both by Israeli troopers or by settlers who typically assault with cowl from Israeli troops.
The battle has introduced Bethlehem’s tourism – a bedrock of its financial system – to a standstill on the time of the 12 months when it often peaks. Where guests from world wide would often throng Bethlehem’s markets round Christmas, the streets are empty this 12 months.
But even when vacationers had been round, there’s no festivity among the many residents of Bethlehem, a lot of whom have shut relations in Gaza.
“How can we celebrate Christmas in the midst of this genocidal war?” asks Tarazi, recognized to these near her as Um Shadi. “How can we celebrate when people in Gaza struggle to get even one meal a day?”
The photographs and information of the struggling in Gaza beneath Israel’s relentless bombardment and floor invasion are an excessive amount of for her. Um Shadi, whose household lives in Gaza City, says she has been notably disturbed by movies of individuals fleeing in the direction of the ocean and being pressured to boil seawater to make it drinkable.
She grew up within the Remal neighbourhood of Gaza City and lived there by means of her 20s through the Sixties. She has “beautiful memories of the sea”, the place she used to swim at evening. People lived in peace, she says.
Life turned more durable after she graduated with a level in English literature from Cairo University in 1967. She was unable to return to Gaza as a result of it was occupied by Israel that 12 months, and as a substitute, she spent the following 10 years in Libya, the place her brothers additionally lived and the place she met her husband.
She ultimately returned to the occupied West Bank, the place she made her dwelling and constructed her Christmas rituals along with her household – traditions she’s going to skip this 12 months.
‘This Christmas, may God have mercy on them’
All indicators of Christmas have disappeared from the streets and houses of Bethlehem. Usually, folks flock to Manger Square, which is adorned with decorations, to look at fireworks. None of that may occur this 12 months.
Lots of individuals in Bethlehem and the encircling space have kinfolk in Gaza. Um Shadi herself has misplaced a brother and a sister for the reason that battle started.
Her brother died on October 17 after being unable to obtain a life-saving gallbladder operation due to the aerial bombardment of hospitals within the Strip.
Just a number of days later, certainly one of her sisters died in an air strike on St Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, the place the household had taken shelter. Another sister misplaced a leg throughout the identical bombardment.
It has all the time been troublesome to see her household, even earlier than the battle, however now she will be able to barely even communicate to them due to the telecommunications blackouts in Gaza.
Um Shadi was unable to attend one other sister’s funeral within the enclave earlier than the battle as a result of she was not granted a allow to journey there. Instead, her niece needed to take a video of the ceremony for her.
In happier years, some Christians from Gaza had been in a position to receive permits from the Israeli authorities to journey from Gaza to Bethlehem at Christmas – one thing her sisters and her buddy Rose typically did, she says.
“My sisters used to visit me, and I say this year on Christmas, may God have mercy on them.”
The agony of not having the ability to talk along with her household in Gaza is insufferable, she provides. It has introduced her to “the brink of despair”.
Christmas was the one joyful occasion that everybody might rely on annually, Um Shadi says. Now, that has gone, too.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/12/24/no-joy-in-our-hearts-bethlehems-christians-face-heartbreak-at-christmas?traffic_source=rss
