It Will Be A Silent Christmas in Bethlehem

This Christmas was celebrated differently in the Biblical birthplace of Jesus.

There will be no foreign tourists and  pilgrims due to a coronavirus travel ban on foreign nationals.

Boy scouts marching on the square and playing bagpipes welcomed Roman Catholic spiritual leader in the Holy Land Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who arrived in the southern West Bank city at the head of a solemn procession from nearby Jerusalem. 

Welcomed  by Franciscan priests dressed in white and black vestments, he bowed his head as he entered into the Church of Nativity, built on the traditional birthplace of Jesus, through its low "Door of Humility." 

Manger Square bordering the Church, adorned with a giant Christmas tree, was empty of the thousands of foreign Christian pilgrims and tourists who packed the square during past Christmases.

Israel closed its skies to foreign nationals in March in a bid to contain the pandemic, which completely stopped the incoming tourism to Israel and the occupied West Bank.

Amid a coronavirus lockdown in the Palestinian areas, none of the normal activities such as choirs on a large stage are planned in an overcast, rainy Bethlehem.

Also in Jerusalem, alleys in the walled Old City's Christian Quarter were empty and shops closed, as Orthodox and Catholic church officials are allowed to drove through Jaffa Gate in a scaled-down convoy of five vehicles. 

The West Bank has been under curfew, with no one allowed out of their homes from 7 pm until 6 am each night for the past few weeks, in a bid to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.