This comes as British charity workers renewed calls on UK ministers to follow Australia and issue temporary visas to children and their families fleeing the war.
“I return to the UK not suggesting that we cancel Christmas, but that we take urgent action in the spirit of Christmas, extending compassion to those suffering before it is too late,” said Dr Krish Kandiah, of the Sanctuary Foundation, who visited both Bethlehem and nearby Jerusalem this week on a fact-finding mission.
“If our government were to start by providing a significant number of humanitarian temporary medical evacuation visas to children and their families, a few lives will be saved from the horrors of war.”
Bethlehem’s Manger Square, which normally sees a 20ft fir tree erected above an illuminated nativity scene, stands empty, locals say, in solidarity with people enduring the conflict just 46 miles away in the Gaza strip. Instead, Dr Munther Isaac, a Palestinian pastor at Bethlehem’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, created a manger scene depicting baby Jesus surrounded by rubble and concrete.
“We did this for ourselves to emphasise that Jesus is in Solidarity with those who suffered,” he told Dr Kandiah.
“Jesus is with us in our pain, when we’re victims of marginalisation and injustice. This is Christmas to us. And I hope that you think of the true meaning of Christmas as you celebrate in your own ways in the UK.”
He added: “For there is a genocide taking place in our land. We’re broken. We’re praying every day for this to end. We’re heartbroken by images of children being pulled from under the rubble on a daily basis. So many people have died. Enough, enough, enough, we say. We urge you to pray that this war is over. We urge you to work, to lobby, to advocate. All we want this Christmas is a comprehensive ceasefire.”