Christmas in Bethlehem: Gilded treasures, but few tourists

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Ahead of Christmas, a towering wooden screen — once blackened with soot from millions of worshippers' candles — is being restored to its gilded glory in the Church of the Nativity, built at the site where many believe Jesus was born.

But few visitors are expected to see it during the upcoming Christmas holiday season.

Biblical Bethlehem has struggled since the start of the coronavirus pandemic almost two years ago. Christmas is normally peak season for tourism in Jesus' traditional birthplace, located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In pre-pandemic times, thousands of pilgrims and tourists from around the world celebrated in the Church of the Nativity and the adjacent Manger Square.

Israel reopened its borders to vaccinated tourists earlier this month, but relatively few are expected to travel to Bethlehem this holiday season, and not nearly as many as in the record-breaking year preceding the pandemic. Most tourists visiting Bethlehem fly into Israel as the West Bank does not have an airport.

Many of Bethlehem’s hotels have shut and shopkeepers have struggled to keep afloat. Aladdin Subuh, a shopkeeper whose store sits just off Manger Square, said he only opens his doors to air out the shop.

“It’s almost Christmas and there’s nobody. Imagine that,” he said, surveying the few passersby in the hopes of spotting a foreigner in search of a souvenir. “For two years, no business. It’s like dying slowly.”

Though the pandemic has blighted the Holy Land’s once thriving tourism industry for Israelis and Palestinians alike, for tourism-dependent Bethlehem, the impact has been especially severe. Israel, the primary gateway for foreign tourists, had banned most foreign visitors for the past year and half before this month's reopening.

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