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Bethlehem

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Palestinians arrive for Christmas events at the Church of Nativity on December 24, 2023 in Bethlehem, West Bank. (Photo: Mamoun Wazwaz/APA Images)

Christians in Palestine called on the world to not celebrate Christmas this year in solidarity with Gaza. Yet many Christian leaders choose to stand with Israel without caring about the land of the man they are supposedly celebrating.

Palestinians evacuating Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza for Deir al-Balah as they are forced to flee south under Israeli bombardment and shelling, December 22, 2023. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy /APA Images)

The biblical Christmas story is not a fairy tale from the distant past but a highly political story can profoundly identify with in December 2023. It is a Palestinian story par excellence.

A Palestinian girl looks up in surprise while she plays with a ball in the middle of the street in a neighborhood in the Aida refugee camp, in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem. (Malik Hamamra/Mondoweiss) May 2023

Over 75 years, the number of Palestinian refugees has surpassed 6 million worldwide and many still live in refugee camps. This is a look at the people who make up the camp, and the names and faces behind the term “refugee.”

Protests greeted US President Joe Biden as his motorcade passed along the main road of Bethlehem in the southern occupied West Bank on Friday. Palestinians chanted “America is a terrorist state,” and held signs saying “Zionists are not welcome,” along with photos of slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

US President Joe Biden is received by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas during a welcome ceremony at the Palestinian Muqataa Presidential Compound in the city of Bethlehem in the West Bank on July 15, 2022. (Photo: Thaer Ganaim/APA Images)

Joe Biden met with Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem on Friday to announce “confidence-building measures” in an attempt to boost the standing of the Palestinian Authority, but Palestinians are skeptical that the moves will have any meaningful impact. “Biden represents a continuity of Trump’s policies, especially on Jerusalem,” Jalal Abu Khater, a Palestinian writer and analyst from Jerusalem, tells Mondoweiss.

Ghada Hania was raised in the UAE on bedtime stories of Palestine from her mother, but when she moved to Gaza at the age of 12, reality clashed with the idealized version of homeland in her head.