The announcement by the PA tourism ministry threatened to devastate the vital tourism industry in the town where Jesus is believed to have been born. The spread of the virus across the Middle East has already disrupted worship at other major holy sites.

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Israeli officials said they were working closely with their Palestinian counterparts to contain the virus. COGAT, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian matters, said it had delivered 250 test kits to the Palestinians and was coordinating joint training sessions for Israeli and Palestinian medical workers.

For the time being, other major places of worship in the Holy Land remained open. Israeli officials said there were no special precautions at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, though hand sanitizing stations were placed at the site.

"In this time of distress, there is nothing more appropriate than coming to pray at the Western Wall," said Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi who oversees the site.

The nearby Al Aqsa mosque compound was expected to welcome 50,000 worshipers for Friday prayers. The Islamic Waqf, which administers the site, said the buildings have been disinfected and the sermon would be brief.

Israel, which has 17 confirmed virus cases, has taken strict measures in a bid to stave off an outbreak, including banning the entry of visitors from around 10 countries.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the government will set up an "emergency cash flow assistance fund" for businesses deemed essential to the economy.

The Church of the Nativity was closed after suspicions that four Palestinians had caught the virus, prompting a flurry of measures that included banning all tourists from PA-controlled areas in Judea and Samaria for an unspecified amount of time and shutting down other places of worship in Bethlehem for two weeks.

The PA health ministry later said a total of seven Palestinians from Bethlehem have tested positive for the virus, the first cases reported in the Palestinian territories.

It said the seven worked at a hotel where a group of Greek tourists stayed during a tour of Israel and the PA in late February. The tourists tested positive for the virus after returning to Greece.

Built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was born in a manger, the Church of the Nativity is one of several tourist and holy sites to shut their doors over concerns about the virus, which has infected tens of thousands of people and killed more than 3,000 globally.

Just before 4 p.m. on Thursday, a bearded clergyman walked outside and locked the church's wooden door with a large key. A team of workers dressed in white overalls arrived with jugs of cleaning materials and walked through a side entrance to disinfect the building. Tariq al-Ali, one of the workers, said it was the second time his team disinfected the church.

"We have disinfected many institutions in the past week. We are under pressure," he said.

Saif Saboh, a Palestinian tour guide, said a number of groups had canceled visits in recent days. He said he has stopped shaking hands or getting too close to tourists. "I'm terrified," he said. "Any tourist could be infected."

The virus has disrupted Muslim worship across the Middle East. Saudi Arabia banned pilgrimages to the holy city of Mecca, while Iran has canceled Friday's Islamic prayers in major cities. Iraq canceled Friday prayers in Karbala, where a weekly sermon is delivered on behalf of the country's top Shiite cleric.

The Church of the Nativity receives some 10,000 tourists a day, according to Palestinian officials, and is expected to welcome tens of thousands of visitors during the Easter season.

Elias al-Arja, the head of the Bethlehem hotel owners union, angrily accused authorities of caving in to panic. "This will cause huge damage to the economy. We have 3,000 workers in the tourist sector and they will all go home. Who is going to feed their families?" he said.

Anton Suleiman, the mayor of Bethlehem, acknowledged the economic impact, but said "public safety is the most important thing to us."

More than 3,740 cases have been confirmed across the Middle East. Iran and Italy have the world's highest death tolls outside of China.

Iran, the epicenter of the virus in the region, announced that it would set up checkpoints to limit travel between major cities and urged citizens to reduce their use of paper money to help slow the outbreak, which has killed at least 107 people in the country.

Iranian state TV also reported that Hossein Sheikholeslam, a 68-year-old diplomat who was an adviser to Iran's foreign minister, became the latest senior official to die of the coronavirus.

In Iran, Health Minister Saeed Namaki announced his country's latest restrictions, saying schools and universities will remain closed through Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on March 20. "We will strictly control comings and goings," he said.

United States Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said Thursday the US offered humanitarian assistance to Iran to help them deal with the outbreak, but "the regime rejected the offer."

Hook, speaking at a news conference in Paris, also said the US has asked Iran to release American detainees "on medical furlough" over fears the coronavirus may be infesting the country's prisons.

Earlier on Thursday, the United Arab Emirates warned citizens and foreign residents not to travel abroad. The country is home to two major long-haul airlines, Emirates and Etihad, which have encouraged staff to take time off as foreign travel has dropped due to the virus.

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A game shown last Friday asked contestants to identify the location of famous churches. One clue was "Built in 300s AD, the Church of the Nativity."

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Contestant Katie Needle answered, "What is Palestine?" and host Alex Trebek said she was incorrect. Her opponent, Jack McGuire, answered "what is Israel?" and was awarded $200.

The show was immediately attacked on social media. The church, in Bethlehem, is located in Judea and Samaria.

"Jeopardy!" producers, in a statement on the show's website Monday, said they realized the question was problematic and replaced it with another. The outcome of the game was not affected.

However, due to what "Jeopardy!" called human error, the uncorrected version of the pre-taped show was sent to television stations by mistake.

"We regret the error and we will make sure this never happens again," the show said in a statement.

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But in recent years a new form of tourism has taken root, focused on the town's Palestinian residents, their culture and history and their struggles.

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As pilgrims descend on Bethlehem this Christmas, they have the option of staying in restored centuries-old guesthouses, taking food tours of local markets, and perusing the dystopian art in and around a hotel designed by the British graffiti artist Banksy.

The centerpiece of tourism, and the focus of Christmas celebrations in the coming weeks, is the 6th-century Church of the Nativity, built on the site where Jesus is believed to have been born in a manger. Extensive renovations in recent years have saved the roof from collapse and revealed colorful wall mosaics depicting angels and saints.

Earlier this month, the Vatican returned a small part of what Christians believe to be the original manger, which was sent to Rome as a gift to the pope in the 7th century. The thumb-sized relic, displayed in an ornate silver case, can be seen in a chapel adjoining the church.

In Manger Square, just outside the church, a massive Christmas tree has been set up and festivities are planned in the coming weeks as various denominations hold staggered Christmas celebrations. On Jan. 7, Bethlehem will host an international Santa convention.

The Palestinian Tourism Ministry expects 3.5 million visitors to Bethlehem in 2019, up from 3 million the previous year, and many think there is still room for growth.

"The general situation in Palestine and the Holy Land is that there is very good security, better than most countries in the world, and so the people are visiting," said Elias Al Arja, chairman of the local hotel association.

He noted that while the Holy Land includes the most important sites in Christianity, including the places where tradition says Christ was born, where he grew up, was crucified and resurrected, it attracts far fewer visitors than the Vatican.

"We have the opportunity to draw more people," he said.

Religious tourism is a boon for the local economy, but many Palestinians feel the city's modern residents are largely ignored.

Visitors traveling to Bethlehem pass through an IDF checkpoint and then drive along Israel's security barrier, which was erected during the Second Intifada of the early 2000s. Bethlehem itself is almost completely surrounded by the barrier and a string of Israeli settlements.

The town's predicament is on vivid display in and around The Walled-Off Hotel, which was designed by Banksy and opened in 2017. The hotel looks out on the security barrier, which itself is covered with artwork, graffiti, and panels. Inside, a number of Banksy pieces are depicted in a haunting lobby, which this time of year is dimly lit with Christmas lights.

The hotel offers weekly performances by local musicians and daily tours of a nearby Palestinian refugee camp. Tours of Banksy's public artwork elsewhere in the town can be organized on request.

A different form of alternative tourism, conceived by Palestinians themselves, can be found in the city center, just a few hundred meters (yards) from the church. There the municipality, with Italian aid, has restored an 18th-century guesthouse and rented it out to Fadi Kattan, a French Palestinian chef.

The Hosh Al-Syrian Guesthouse includes 12 tastefully furnished rooms ranging from $80-$150 a night. At its Fawda [Arabic for "chaos"] Restaurant, Kattan uses local ingredients to cook up traditional Palestinian cuisine with a modern twist.

"My vision was to say religious tourism will promote itself by itself, it doesn't need the private sector to promote it," he said.

"Let's promote everything else. Let's promote our food, let's promote our culture, let's promote our history."

Kattan is especially keen to promote Palestinian cuisine, which he says has been appropriated by Israeli chefs and food writers. However, as with nearly everything else having to do with the Middle East conflict, there are two sides: Israeli cuisine owes much to Jewish immigrants from ancient communities across the Middle East and North Africa.

The guesthouse partners with a local group known as Farayek to offer food tours in which visitors wander through the local market, meeting farmers, butchers and bakers before having lunch at the guesthouse. Another program includes cooking classes taught by a Palestinian grandmother.

"What I was hoping to achieve is to have people stay three nights in Bethlehem, to have people go to the fruit and vegetable market, to have people meet the people of Bethlehem, not just the very short tour into the city," he said.

When the guesthouse opened in 2014, the average stay was one night, but now it has risen to three-and-a-half nights, with steady occupancy throughout the low season, Kattan said.

A handful of other restored guesthouses have also opened in recent years, including Dar al-Majus, Arabic for House of the Maji, named for the three kings said to have visited the manger after Christ was born.

The guesthouse is part of a wider initiative by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land and a local association to support the Christian community, which like others across the Middle East has dramatically dwindled in recent decades.

A local family living next to the guesthouse cooks breakfast and traditional meals for guests, and the guesthouse employs members of another two families. The guesthouse mostly supplies itself from the local market, and there are plans to expand to another restored house in the old quarter next year.

Bethlehem's mayor, Anton Salman, expects the recent growth in tourism to continue.

"Each season is more active and more organized and more attractive for the local community in Palestine and for the tourists," he said.

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Three Banksy prints go under the hammer in Paris on Wednesday, a first auction of his works since a print that sold in London earlier this month for $1.37 million and was half shredded in a stunt after the hammer fell.

The hotel opened in June 2017. It has 10 rooms, ranging from a budget barracks-style accommodation for backpackers to a presidential suite that can sleep six.

The Bristol-based artist, who has become a global phenomenon over the past decade but whose real identity is a closely guarded secret, has described the guesthouse as having "the worst views of any hotel in the world."

That has not deterred guests.

"I came because I heard Banksy opened a new hotel and I was curious," a visitor from Melbourne, Australia, said last summer. "I wanted to check it out and check out the West Bank, too. The hotel with the worst views, that's quite interesting. It's unique."

Bethlehem Mayor Vera Baboun said when the hotel opened that while the town where Jesus was born already attracted a large number of tourists to sites such as the Church of the Nativity, the Walled Off Hotel added an extra dimension.

The hotel is "a very significant addition to the entity of Bethlehem as a touristic city," she said. "Having Banksy putting all his paintings in the hotel, it has significant political messages."

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