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BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The biblical municipality of Bethlehem is gearing up for its 2nd consecutive Christmas Eve deed by the coronavirus -- with tiny crowds and gray, gloomy upwind dampening celebrations Friday successful the accepted birthplace of Jesus.
A prohibition connected astir each incoming aerial postulation by Israel -- the main introduction constituent for overseas visitors heading to the occupied West Bank -- kept planetary tourists distant for a 2nd consecutive year. The prohibition is meant to dilatory the dispersed of the highly contagious omicron variant, which has shaken Christmas celebrations astir the world.
Instead, section authorities were counting connected the Holy Land’s tiny Christian assemblage to assistance spirits.
Bethlehem’s mayor, Anton Salman, said the municipality was optimistic that 2021 would beryllium amended than past year’s Christmas, erstwhile adjacent section residents stayed location owed to lockdown restrictions. Bethlehem planned a instrumentality of its accepted marching set parades and thoroughfare celebrations.
“Last year, our festival was virtual, but this twelvemonth it volition beryllium look to look with fashionable participation,” Salman said.
Police erected barricades aboriginal Friday arsenic scout bands marched done Manger Square banging drums and holding flags up of the expected accomplishment from Jerusalem of Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the apical Roman Catholic clergyman successful the Holy Land.
Pizzaballa was scheduled to observe Midnight Mass astatine the adjacent Church of the Nativity — which houses the grotto wherever Christians judge Jesus was born.
By midday, respective 100 people, astir each of them Palestinians, milled astir down the barricades to observe the occasion.
Before the pandemic, Bethlehem would big thousands of Christian pilgrims from astir the world, bringing a beardown dose of vacation tone to the municipality and a immense jolt to the section economy. The nonaccomplishment of planetary tourism, the lifeblood of Bethlehem’s economy, has deed hotels, restaurants and acquisition shops particularly hard.
“Under mean conditions for this clip of year, I usually person a 20-meter queue outside,” said Adil Abu Nayaf, proprietor of an bare nutrient stall successful Manger Square.
Those who attended tried to marque the champion of a hard situation. The Holy Land is location to implicit 200,000 Christians, a tiny but tight-knit assemblage that makes up an estimated 1% to 2% of the colonisation successful Israel and the occupied West Bank. There are besides thousands of overseas laborers and African migrants, arsenic good arsenic diplomats and journalists.
Billy Stuart, an worker astatine the British Consulate successful Jerusalem, said his acquisition successful Bethlehem was uplifting, contempt the smaller-than-hoped-for crowds.
“The parade is astonishing and I did not recognize determination were truthful galore Palestinian container pipers,” helium said.
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