West Bank celebrates Christmas amid Israeli attacks

Occupied West Bank (QNN)- Christmas celebrations have resumed this year in the West Bank, including the occupied biblical city of Bethlehem, albeit dampened by Israeli raids and settlers’ lynching attacks into villages.

In Bethlehem, the city where Christians believe Jesus was born, scout troops marched towards Manger Square banging drums and playing bagpipes and passing along the narrow cobble-stoned route, known as the Star Street, as they entertained local faithful who gathered at the square ahead of the expected arrival from of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Pizzaballa headed the annual procession from the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem to Manger Square, passing as usual through a massive metal gate in the towering Israeli concrete wall that separates the occupied cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Two days earlier, Israeli forces had continued their attacks on the city and its villages, taking over agricultural land in the town of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem, in order to establish metal gates that will lead to the settlement outpost of ‘Sidi Boaz’, built illegally on Palestinian-owned land.

Also in the same week, Israeli forces demolished a two-story Palestinian-owned house in the construction stage in the town of Nahalin, to the west of the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, and detained a Palestinian youth from the village of Hosan, west of Bethlehem, after raiding his family home.

In Ramallah, an Israeli settler deliberately rammed a 63-year-old lady, killing her, and escaped the scene.

The murder is the third in three days in the West Bank. Two days earlier, Israeli forces burnt a 22-year-old young man alive in his car near Jenin and murdered a 26-year-old young man in Al Bireh, Ramallah.

In the same week, Israeli forces detained at least 18 citizens, including minors, in night raids into West Bank cities.

Yesterday, groups of settlers attacked the village of Burqa in the West Bank city of Jenin. They attacked citizens and burnt houses, leaving 127 injuries according to the Red Crescent.

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