BETHLEHEM, West Bank ¨C There will be no musical festivities. No tree-lighting ceremony. No extravagant decorations that normally bedeck the West Bank city of Bethlehem at Christmas. With the war in the Gaza Strip raging, this is a city in mourning.
In perhaps the most overt display of how Israel¡¯s war in Gaza has dampened Christmas celebrations in the city seen as the birthplace of Jesus, a Lutheran church put up its cr¨¨che, but with a sad and symbolic twist. The baby Jesus ¡ª wrapped in a keffiyeh, the black-and-white checkered scarf that has become a badge of Palestinian identity ¡ª is lying not in a makeshift cradle of hay and wood. Instead, he lies among the rubble of broken bricks, stones and tiles that represent so much of Gaza¡¯s destruction.
¡°We¡¯ve been glued to our screens, seeing children pulled from under the rubble day after day. We¡¯re broken by these images,¡± said the Rev. Munther Isaac, the pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church who created the cr¨¨che. ¡°God is under the rubble in Gaza. This is where we find God right now.¡±
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.