As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Bethlehem has seen a record-low number of visitors arriving ahead of Christmas for the second year in a row.
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Ahead of the holiday, a towering wooden screen − once blackened with soot from millions of worshippers' candles − is being restored to its gilded glory in the Church of the Nativity, built at the site where many believe Jesus was born. But few visitors are expected to see it this season.
Biblical Bethlehem has been struggling since the start of the pandemic. Christmas is normally peak season for tourism with thousands of pilgrims and tourists from around the world celebrating in the Church of the Nativity and the adjacent Manger Square in pre-pandemic times.
Israel reopened its borders to vaccinated tourists earlier this month, but relatively few are expected to travel to Bethlehem this holiday season, and not nearly as many as in the record-breaking year preceding the pandemic. Most tourists visiting Bethlehem fly into Israel, as the West Bank does not have an airport.
Many local hotels have shut and shopkeepers have struggled to keep afloat. Aladdin Subuh, a shopkeeper whose store sits just off Manger Square, said he only opens his doors to air out the shop.
"It's almost Christmas and there's nobody. Imagine that," he said, surveying the few passersby in the hopes of spotting a foreigner in search of a souvenir. "For two years, no business. It's like dying slowly."
Though the pandemic has blighted the region's once thriving tourism industry for Israelis and Palestinians alike, for tourism-dependent Bethlehem, the impact has been especially severe. Israel, the primary gateway for foreign tourists, had banned most foreign visitors for the past year and half before this month's reopening.
"I don't think tourism will come back very soon," said Fadi Kattan, a Palestinian chef and hotelier in Bethlehem's Old City. The pandemic forced him to close his Hosh Syrian guesthouse in March 2020, and over the months he had to let his staff go.
He said it was neither financially nor practically feasible to reopen ahead of Christmas, particularly in light of a new wave of coronavirus infections sweeping across Europe. He said it will take years to recover Bethlehem's economy.
"To reopen in security we need to see that there's a long-term prospect," he said.
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