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Christmas began in Palestine.

Yet Palestine’s Christians, the world’s oldest Christian community, have long been ignored by the West. The population in the occupied territory is in rapid decline; falling from 10 percent in 1948 to one percent, or 47,000, in 2017, according to the PCBS . In November 2023, there were 800 to 1,000 Christians left in Gaza. That figure is undoubtedly lower today.

Last Christmas alone, 100 Palestinians were killed overnight in airstrikes in Khan Younis and Maghazi, while the Israeli prime minister  calls for a ceasefire, stating, “We are not stopping. We are continuing to fight, and we will be intensifying the fighting in the coming days.”

Since then, a hierarchy of brutality has been impossible to determine.

������ reached out to Palestinians to better understand the realities of Christmas in their homeland, both historically and in the present day amid Israel’s ongoing genocide.

Amid occupation, there is hope 

Born in Jaffa, Samia Khoury, now 91 years old, recalls Christmas in Palestine before the 1948 Nakba.

“Christmas was always a family occasion and a time of exchanging gifts. We gathered in the evenings around the Christmas tree, sang carols, went to church in the morning [...] and enjoyed having all the cousins around during these days until everybody dispersed and settled in a different part of the world after 1948,” Samia says.

After fourteen months of genocide, during which at least 46,000 Palestinian people have been , such celebrations are now a distant memory. Yet, she maintains hope:

“Sometimes we even feel that not only the world community, but even God himself has abandoned us. Yet more so now than ever, I know that deep in my heart we shall overcome, and that we need to hold onto our faith and hope that Christmas will lead us into a new dawn of peace and tranquillity so that we can truly sing: ‘Joy to the World, the Lord has come.’”

As Israel continues to bomb Gaza’s mosques, churches have become essential sanctuaries for Christian and Muslim Palestinians alike. At least 500 people were sheltering at the Church of Saint Porphyrios in Gaza City when it was in October 2023, according to Palestinian officials. Sixteen of them were killed.

“The grief is very heavy” for children, says Yousef Al Khouri, whose nieces and nephews were friends of three children killed in the strike. The church itself continues to function as a community space, running activities for Gaza’s youth, says Yousef, who was born and raised in Gaza City.

This year, he says, “the priest of St Porphyrios has been preparing and hand-making Santa/Christmas hats to surprise the children sheltering at the church.”

Now living in Bethlehem, Yousef is a Professor of Biblical Studies at Bethlehem Bible College, but he continues to support Porphyrios.

While there is nothing left to celebrate, like Samia, he has not lost hope: “If we cannot find hope in our faith and give up to despair, then it’s over. I think the last thing the colonial regime wants to steal from us is hope.”

His desolate expression is broken, only briefly, when I ask him about food. He describes a Palestinian dish called Burbara, made from wheat, cooked in spices, topped with ground sugar and cinnamon.

Made in honour of the Orthodox Saint Barbara, he explains, it is typically eaten a week before Christmas on Eid il-Burbara, or Saint Barbara’s Day. This is the first day of Christmas for many Orthodox families in Gaza: when Burbara is shared, homes are decorated, and trees are adorned with light.

Burbara is mentioned by almost everyone I spoke to, from those in Palestine to others in the United States, Canada, and Lebanon. For those raised in Gaza City, memories of the Christmas day parade, led by the scouts of both the Orthodox and Catholic churches, inspire a similarly nostalgic smile.

An artificial separation

“You cannot separate Bethlehem from Gaza,” says Dalia Qumsieh, Founder and Director of the .

She adds, “The impacts of the war on Gaza were immediately felt in the West Bank,” where settler violence has intensified since October 2023.

Last year the OCHA  a record number of demolitions of Palestinian-owned structures in the West Bank, and with 1,615 demolitions already recorded this year, last year’s figures have been surpassed. Just last week, settlers  to a mosque in the village of Marda, defacing it with graffiti that read "Death to Arabs" in Hebrew.

Moreover, Dalia explains, the apartheid wall dividing Bethlehem and Jerusalem serves to separate two central pillars of the Christian faith: the Nativity and the Resurrection.

“Historically, Bethlehem and Jerusalem were always geographically connected, and their population identified as part of the same people. In the aftermath of the first Intifada, and for the first time in history, Israel physically (with checkpoints and the annexation wall) and administratively (by imposing the permit system and a different ID system) separated the two cities from each other. In that sense, it is an artificial separation that has caused severe harm to the social Palestinian fabric,” she says.

From Bethlehem to the diaspora

Six thousand miles away, in the political nexus of the nation which provides the most unconditional assistance to Israel’s genocide, Khalil Sayegh, a Palestinian Christian from Gaza, recalls Christmases spent waiting for permits and detained at checkpoints in an effort to visit the Holy Land.

Now, reflecting on his experiences, Khalil, who spent the majority of his life in Palestine, is preparing to spend his second Christmas away from home.

All the Palestinian Christians I spoke to in the diaspora are in a perpetual state of longing. For Maria Tojjo in Syria, whose grandparents fled Haifa during the Nakba: “We always remember and hope to celebrate Christmas in our homeland, the holy one where Jesus was born.”

Solidarity versus hypocrisy

Some Western Christians support those living under occupation.

“This is cruelty. This is not war,” said Pope Francis on Saturday, while St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Washington DC “Christ in the Rubble,” inspired by a at Bethlehem’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. A carol service in London, organised by Palestine Pulse, also replicated the scene.

Others are outraged by such solidarity; the Vatican recently removed a nativity scene depicting the baby Jesus wrapped in a Keffiyeh, following public backlash. Yet the majority remain silent; a combination of ignorance, denial and the fervour of Christian Zionism.

“Christian Zionism predates Jewish Zionism” to Reverend Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Christian theologian. In his book, The Other Side of the Wall, Isaac describes Christian Zionism as “an imperial theology” that “serves the interests of the empires of today at the expense of the weak and defenceless” and which is manifesting, especially in the United States, based on false interpretations of scripture.

As festive pleasure-seekers cascade down high streets worldwide, Palestinians in Gaza, regardless of religion, can barely afford flour.

While we scoff on roast potatoes, adorned in paper crowns, the opportunity to forget the pain and suffering of Palestinians is welcomed with open arms.

As the BDS movement explains: “The holiday season accounts for approximately 20% of all annual global spending. By focusing our efforts on BDS consumer targets we can use our purchasing power to sharply raise the price of corporate complicity in Israel’s genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and its underlying cause, 76 years of settler-colonial apartheid.”

Pro-Palestine protesters remain steadfast — diverting shoppers and targeting complicit companies with slogans such as “while you’re shopping bombs are dropping.”

The dissonance is painful, the blank stares infuriating, but it generates further action. Until there is justice, there will be no peace.

[Cover photo: "The land of Christmas is dying" by Zak Irfan. From a carol service for Palestine in London, December 21, 2024]

Ana Maria Monjardino is an independent journalist and writer from London

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