Bethlehem, occupied West Financial institution – At Christmas, Noha Helmi Tarazi usually decorates her house with a big tree, which she describes as an emblem 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 underneath the Christmas tree for her grandchildren, taking care to wrap them and label them with their names.
This yr, nobody will collect in her house. Even the youngsters don’t really feel like celebrating, she says.
“There is no joy left in our hearts,” she says.
Within the birthplace of Jesus Christ, the celebrations for Christmas are on maintain. The choice to cancel Christmas has not been taken flippantly, however it’s one the church and group listed below are all united on, to indicate their solidarity with the Palestinians going through Israeli bombardment and a complete siege within the Gaza Strip.
Israeli bombing and artillery fireplace have killed greater than 20,000 folks in Gaza for the reason that battle started on October 7, together with not less than 8,000 youngsters. Greater than 300 folks have been killed within the occupied West Financial institution, 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 economic system – to a standstill on the time of the yr when it often peaks. The place guests from world wide would often throng Bethlehem’s markets round Christmas, the streets are empty this yr.
However 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 pictures and information of the struggling in Gaza underneath Israel’s relentless bombardment and floor invasion are an excessive amount of for her. Um Shadi, whose household lives in Gaza Metropolis, says she has been notably disturbed by movies of individuals fleeing in direction of the ocean and being compelled to boil seawater to make it drinkable.
She grew up within the Remal neighbourhood of Gaza Metropolis and lived there by her 20s through the Nineteen Sixties. She has “beautiful memories of the sea”, the place she used to swim at evening. Individuals lived in peace, she says.
Life turned more durable after she graduated with a level in English literature from Cairo College in 1967. She was unable to return to Gaza as a result of it was occupied by Israel that yr, and as an alternative, she spent the subsequent 10 years in Libya, the place her brothers additionally lived and the place she met her husband.
She ultimately returned to the occupied West Financial institution, the place she made her house and constructed her Christmas rituals along with her household – traditions she’s going to skip this yr.
‘This Christmas, may God have mercy on them’
All indicators of Christmas have disappeared from the streets and houses of Bethlehem. Normally, folks flock to Manger Sq., which is adorned with decorations, to observe fireworks. None of that can occur this yr.
A lot of folks in Bethlehem and the encircling space have relations 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.
Only a few days later, one in every of her sisters died in an air strike on St Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, the place the household had taken shelter. One other sister misplaced a leg throughout the identical bombardment.
It has at all times been tough to see her household, even earlier than the battle, however now she will barely even converse 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. As a substitute, 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 get hold of permits from the Israeli authorities to journey from Gaza to Bethlehem at Christmas – one thing her sisters and her pal 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 with 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 may depend on annually, Um Shadi says. Now, that has gone, too.
