Holy Land: Pilgrimages Suffer From the War

In Bethlehem, the city of Christ’s birth, the Church of the Nativity has been deserted for more than 2 weeks after the Islamic organization Hamas perpetrated the bloodiest attack in recent history on Israel.

For their part, the shopkeepers lament the deaths, the inevitable retaliations of the Hebrew state, but also the economic consequences: “the first cancellations are in for the groups who had to fly out,” said Hagop, an employee in a travel agency.

“The last time that I saw the Church of the Nativity so empty, it was during the COVID epidemic,” sighed Laith, a young 25-year-old Palestinian guide. The Catholic sanctuary, recorded as a UNESCO World Heritage site, usually draws in hundreds of thousands of tourists each year in this Palestinian city situated in the West Bank.

“We have experienced some periods more difficult than others due to the tensions, but this time it’s as if we are also in a state of siege; the roads are closed most of the time, whether they go toward the other cities of the West Bank or toward Jerusalem and Israel.”

Georges Baboul, the 88-year-old owner of a souvenir shop in Bethlehem, explained, resigned: “There is no reason for the pilgrims to come, and the tourists come to visit, not to be afraid.”

It must be said that the war provoked by the Islamists of Hamas is like the straw that broke the camel’s back: “the Palestinians killed in the West Bank, the corruption of the Palestinian Authority, the gas shortages at gas stations, all that doesn’t sell dreams,” a young Palestinian said ironically.

And furthermore, there is the management of the chaos which reigned after the massacres of October 7: the airline companies cancelled their return flights to France without warning, leaving numerous pilgrims in the midst of confusion: “Many groups were evacuated to Jordan,” explained Sylvie Chaigneau, who is in charge of Holy Land coverage, to La Croix.

Another group had its airline company offer them a flight in Egypt: “This entailed taking a bus through Negev, which remains a risky area, then through Sinai until Egypt, a red zone according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs” the organizer noted with regret.

“Everyone knows that the area is volatile. I cannot understand these companies which decide to cancel their flights overnight, abandoning the people they brought here,” another pilgrimage organizer said.

“A dozen groups are expected in early November, but at the moment everything is on hold; we await the instructions of the Minister of Foreign Affairs,” explained another person in the field who said that the November and December groups are already in the process of cancelling their pilgrimages. The end of the year promises to be very gloomy in the Holy Land.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem’s calls for peace have accomplished nothing, perhaps because they arrived too late after the emotion of the massacres perpetrated by the Islamists: “we implore the political leaders and the authorities to engage in a sincere dialog, in searching for lasting solutions which favor justice, peace, and reconciliation for the inhabitants of this country, which has been shouldering the burden of conflict for far too long,” stated Cardinal Giovanni Pizzaballa.