Christmas celebrations have returned to the birthplace of Jesus after a two-year hiatus, but the enjoyment stays overshadowed by one other turbulent 12 months for Palestinians dwelling beneath an Israeli-occupation in the West Bank.
Morning mass was held on the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem on Thursday, a day after crowds of Palestinians and international vacationers flocked onto Manger Square to attend celebrations for the primary time since they have been halted in solidarity with Palestinians suffering a two-year lethal conflict in Gaza.
Despite the festivities, the numbers of individuals attending remained restricted, which, in accordance with Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti, is because of Israeli army checkpoints blocking roads in the West Bank.
Pizzaballa walks down the aisle to guide Mass on Thursday. – Hazem Bader/AFP by way of Getty Images
People attend the Christmas morning Mass at Church of the Nativity on Thursday. – Mahmoud Illean/AP
“The West Bank is completely under siege,” Barghouti informed NCS’s Matthew Chance in Bethlehem on Wednesday. “Israel has blocked the roads. Of course many people couldn’t come. … Many people cannot afford to come, and many people find great difficulty moving from one place to another.”
As the conflict in Gaza raged on, the occupied West Bank skilled a pointy escalation in Israeli army operations, document numbers of Palestinian house demolitions and unprecedented enlargement of Jewish settlements amid a Palestinian management stricken by allegations of corruption and stagnant decision-making.
In 2025, more than 30,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their properties in cities in the West Bank in “what has become the longest and largest displacement crisis in the West Bank since 1967,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) mentioned in a report revealed November.
The Church of the Nativity is seen on Wednesday. – Yosri Aljamal/Reuters
The West Bank, which lies west of the Jordan River between Israel and Jordan, has been occupied by the Israeli army since 1967 and is house to greater than 3.3 million Palestinians.
This 12 months noticed a record number of Palestinian house and constructions demolition in the West Bank over constructing permits, but human rights group, just like the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) mentioned in October that the destruction is a “deliberate policy of dispossession.”
“Families are being stripped of homes, water and livelihoods in a calculated effort to drive them from their land and make way for settlements,” mentioned Angelita Caredda, NRC’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “This is not accidental destruction. It is a deliberate policy of dispossession.”
Smoke billows from the location of a number of explosions throughout an Israeli raid on the Jenin camp in the West Bank on February 2. – Mohammad Mansour/AFP by way of Getty Images
A person stands on the rubble of a home that was demolished by the Israeli military in the village of Qalandia in the West Bank on December 16. – Zain Jaafar/AFP by way of Getty Images
Killings have additionally continued in the West Bank, with at the least 233 Palestinians killed this 12 months alone, together with 52 youngsters, most of whom by Israeli forces utilizing reside ammunition, in accordance with information from OCHA. Israeli forces have launched a number of widescale army operations in opposition to Palestinian militant teams in cities in the West Bank.
The violence hasd coincided with document unlawful settlement constructing throughout the Palestinian territories.
This month, the Israeli cupboard approved the legalization and institution of 19 settler outposts and in May, Israel introduced it might set up 22 new settlements in what Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now mentioned was the most important enlargement of settlements in greater than 30 years.
Israeli settlements total are thought of unlawful beneath worldwide legislation. Outposts, in addition to being unlawful beneath worldwide legislation, are additionally banned beneath Israeli legislation.
“Such unilateral actions, as part of a wider intensification of the settlement policies in the West Bank, not only violate international law but also risk fueling instability,” 14 nations mentioned in a joint assertion criticizing the 19 new settlements.
An aerial view exhibits scouts marching on Wednesday throughout Christmas Eve celebrations on Manger Square outdoors the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. – Hazem Bader/AFP by way of Getty Images
Israeli leaders have turn into ever extra specific in their rejection of a future Palestinian state in the leadup to and for the reason that October 7, 2023, Hamas assault on southern Israel, regardless of worldwide requires a negotiated resolution to the decades-long occupation.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, introduced the settlement enlargement in an announcement earlier this month.
“We are blocking on the ground the establishment of a Palestinian terror state,” he mentioned. “We will continue to develop, build, and settle in the land of our forefathers’ inheritance, with faith in the justice of our path.”
For extra NCS information and newsletters create an account at NCS.com