Silent Night: Despite violence, Christmas in Bethlehem goes on

The four separate incidents came as revelers were gathering in the West Bank city of Bethlehem for Christmas celebrations, festivities that are being dampened by the latest outburst of violence.

Three more were shot dead in the West Bank, and another killed during clashes with Israeli forces at a refugee camp in the West Bank on Thursday. A fourth Palestinian was killed in clashes with Israeli troops, according to a Palestinian hospital official.

In the middle of Manger Square in the Old City of Bethlehem, a group of Palestinian teenage girls pose for selfies in front of a enormous, shimmering Christmas tree. Aside from the daily violations that the besieged Bethlehem suffers as a result of the occupation, Israel issued a military order last week announcing that it has confiscated 101 dunams of Bethlehem’s northern lands.

As the Bethlehem festivities got underway, Miral Siriani, a 35-year-old publicist from Jerusalem, said she was relieved to get a break from three months of tension that has included numerous attacks in her city.

“Christmas time in Bethlehem is, of course, special”.

“It’s a sad Christmas to be honest”, said Nabil Giacaman, a Palestinian Christian and owner of a souvenir shop, who a few days before the holiday hadn’t bothered to decorate his store.

A Palestinian security officer said Friday the suspects set fire Wednesday to the tree in Zababdeh, a Christian majority village near Jenin.

As tourists cavort themselves upon the beach at Tel Aviv, the rest of the world sings Christmas carols to the glory of God; praising peace and goodwill to all men.

As Jesus was born in Bethlehem, thousands of pilgrims every year visit the city every year to celebrate one of the most important holiday seasons in the holy land of Palestine.

In the troubled southern Philippines, seven Christian farmers were killed on Thursday as Muslim guerrillas launched a series of attacks, the military said.

However, he slammed the Palestinian authority, saying that “there is a clear insistence of some leaders to overcome the reconciliation agreements and reach an agreement that is far from the reality in a way that makes such agreements to operate the crossing very hard to implement”.

Taking security arrangements into consideration, Father Ibrahim Faltas, General Administrator of the Custody of the Holy Land, encouraged Christians around the world to visit Bethlehem dismissing any security concerns.

Referring to Jesus’ birth in a Bethlehem stable, the pope said the child was “born into the poverty of this world; there was no room in the inn for him and his family”.

A gas tanker truck ignited an inferno at a crowded industrial gas plant in Nigeria on Thursday, killing more than 100 people lining up to refill their cooking gas cylinders in time for Christmas.