Palestinian Christians hope for a peaceful Christmas

As the ceasefire holds and tourists return to Bethlehem, an update from the Holy Land

A group of Indonesian Christian tourists enter the bus in front of their hotel in Bethlehem. The group, more than 40 men and women, are touring the Bethlehem area, staying some nights in a hotel owned by a Christian family. As they visit the so-called Shepherds’ Field area, another group of tourists from Paraguay enter the same area.

These are encouraging signs because (albeit in small numbers) Christian tourists have finally returned to the West Bank, Palestine—a direct result of the ceasefire in Gaza.

Palestinian Christians living in the Bethlehem area are happy with the development, especially now that Christmas is approaching. Some hotels owned by Christians have opened their doors again, although the majority remain closed. The same goes for some of the restaurants and souvenir shops.

An estimated 42,300 Christians live in the West Bank among the Muslim-majority community. Most Christians live in Bethlehem and surroundings. After the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 and the war that followed, tourists began to stay away from the region, leaving the Palestinian Christians working in the tourism sector without work and income.

In Palestine, believers anyone born into a Christian family faces all kinds of opposition to their faith. And converts from Islam who become followers of Jesus Christ often face harsh persecution. In many cases, this persecution of converts comes from their direct family. For instance, a 20-year-old woman who converted at the end of 2024 was killed by her family in February 2025. The family is now threatening a pastor she was in contact with. He received a message on his phone: “We killed our daughter, do you think we won’t kill you?”

Most of the Christians on the West Bank feel they are squeezed out of their country. “We are considered foreigners, seen as people that come from the crusaders, we’re seen as infidels,” says Chris*, who coordinates the work of Open Doors’ local partner in Palestine. “When you look in the history books in schools, there is no mention of Christians before the seventh century when Islam came to the area. But, of course, there has been a church in the area since the days of the first apostles.”

Chris adds that there is another squeeze all Palestinians in the West Bank feel: the political situation with the State of Israel. “That has a negative impact on our economy,” he says.

“We suffer because of the travel restrictions to Israel, because of the many Israeli checkpoints and gates on the West Bank,” Chris explains. “Those checkpoints make travel from one village or city to another into an uncertain adventure for Palestinians in the West Bank. Sometimes you just stand for hours at a checkpoint or a gate.” Those kinds of delays make life extremely difficult. One of Chris’s colleagues adds, ““When bringing your children to school, you never know if the gates [will be] open or closed.”

Aside from the believers from Christian families, there are also an unknown number of converts from Islam in the West Bank and in Gaza. Specific numbers are not known, as many of these believers keep their conversion a secret. Some say there might be even more converts in Gaza than traditional Christians.

Chris can’t confirm this, but does acknowledge the possibility that there might be up to 1,000 converts from Islam in Gaza. In the West Bank, Chris says there are at least “hundreds.”
 

An angelic sound

In the Bethlehem area, tourism is the main source of income, especially for Christians. No tourists meant two long years of no work at all in that sector. Closed borders also meant many Christians couldn’t go to work in Israel. No work meant no income.

Because the Palestinian authorities didn't do anything in support of people without income, the churches stepped in. “Often that meant that the priests and pastors couldn’t be the spiritual leaders for us as they should have,” Chris says.

He mentions an example: “One of the churches in the area before October 2023 had to financially support 17 of the families of their congregation, but now there are 70 families that need this support.”

Since the ceasefire in Gaza, the situation has slightly improved. You don’t see crowds of tourists everywhere yet, there are no long lines of pilgrims waiting to enter the Nativity church, but at least there are tourists. The Christian businessmen in Bethlehem hope that numbers will continue to rise.

At the Shepherd’s Field area in Bethlehem, the Indonesians gather in an open-air chapel where they listen to a short sermon. At another Bethlehem site, the chapel with the dome, a group of five men sing “Silent Night.” The acoustics are fantastic in the enclosed chapel; although there are only a few voices, the sound is angelic. The sight of people back in Bethlehem brings hope.