Faith leaders and residents in Bethlehem are grappling with how to mark the festive holiday while fellow Palestinians continue to be killed.

Bethlehem, the biblical birthplace of Jesus Christ, in the occupied West Bank, observed Christmas without its customary festive displays for the

In November, over a year into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a report by the Gaza-based Community Training Center for Crisis Management produced a grim statistic: “Nearly all children in the embattled Palestinian enclave believe their death is imminent — and nearly half of them want to die.”