Palestinian Nativity

I read a headline recently: “Palestinian Christians lobby for a ceasefire, cancel Christmas festivities.” Bethlehem’s religious leadership felt large-scale Christmas celebrations would be inappropriate amidst “a massacre happening in Gaza and attacks in the West Bank.” In solidarity with Gaza, and alongside their calls for a complete ceasefire, Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem and throughout the Holy Land will observe a solemn Christmas holiday with a focus on religious services and prayer. 

I came across this headline while searching for an image I had seen of a Palestinian church’s Nativity scene, which placed their Christ child figure, wrapped in a keffiyeh, upon a pile of rubble. The Holy Family, shepherds, and Magi surrounded the manger’s ruins as if searching for baby Jesus amidst the rubble. 

The Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem constructed this scene to evoke the horrific images of Gazans trying to rescue their children from the ruins of their homes, destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. 

Answering the question, “Is there any hope left?” Munther Isaac, the church’s pastor, responded, “The Christmas story actually gives us hope in the fact that Jesus was born among the occupied…It tells us that baby Jesus is in solidarity with those who are suffering, with those who are oppressed…We find our only source of hope is our faith in a just God, and in our solidarity with one another.”

This manger scene is not the first time I’ve found myself considering parallels between the nativity story and the ongoing crisis in Gaza, as we witness the “Massacre of the Innocents” in our own time.

If God were to send Jesus today, I cannot help but think that the child would be born on the floor of a hospital in Gaza because there are no more beds in the emergency room. As the doctor attends to mother and baby during the delivery, guided through the dark by flashlight, his only offering would be vinegar from the corner store in place of disinfectant. There is no need for myrrh in a place where the smell of blood and death is everywhere.

This child would rest on a mattress in a tent nearby within a larger encampment of displaced families. Perhaps his cousin, hardly older than a baby himself, would present to him with both hands a toy elephant. It is more precious than gold and among the few possessions he carried in his backpack as his family evacuated from their home in northern Gaza to Rafah, where they were told they would be safe. 

There is no “glory to God in the highest” in the near-constant chorus of bombs and missiles that disrupt their sleep.

Does the child’s mother have winter clothes to wrap him in? When she fled her home last month, some ten miles on foot, was she able to carry what they would need when the time came for her baby to be born? Do they have enough blankets to keep warm, or a tarp to protect the tent when it rains? 

These past two months, I have seen far too many photographs that evoke the Pietà: the anguish of Gazan mothers holding tightly to their murdered children, the children’s tiny bodies wrapped in little shrouds.

I don’t have to imagine the shepherds. I see their reverent care in the actions of countless Palestinian men, keeping watch over their neighbors and families. 

They are running towards the sound of an explosion to help survivors, even as they cry out in horror that the airstrike targeted their neighbors just down the street. The tenderness of these men constantly moves me as they call out for their beloved ones in the shattered remnants of their homes. 

These men demonstrate heartbreaking gentleness while on their hands and knees, searching for their children under the rubble, digging through the debris with their bare hands. When they rescue a frightened little girl from under the rubble, they assure her that she is not going to the cemetery. She is alive “and as beautiful as the moon.”

Among these men are the local journalists and photographers in Gaza, whose dedicated coverage allows the wider world to see these devastating scenes. Motaz Azaiza, a 24-year-old Gazan photographer, frequently says he never wanted to show the people of Gaza living in such a desperate state. He wanted to share their beauty and resilience with the wider world. 

Instead, he has become a documentarian of his people’s genocide, sharing on-the-ground footage of the crisis to a global following at significant risk to his safety. 

A few weeks ago, Israeli snipers shot at Motaz and his colleagues, despite their being clearly identifiable as working journalists. The camera keeps rolling during their retreat, capturing the sound of bullets whizzing just past them, briefly showing Motaz as he calls out to his colleague: “Yousef!” in a moment of palpable panic.  

I had already been thinking about Joseph when the temporary truce expired. Just the day before that narrow escape from Israeli gunfire, Motaz helped another colleague, Ali Jadallah, transport his wife and children to the southern border to evacuate from Gaza. 

Instead of a prophetic dream, Ali received leaflets dropped from an Israeli aircraft advising civilians to move even further south, yet again, for their safety. Knowing well that there is no truly safe place in Gaza, Ali escorted his family to Rafah Crossing for their flight into Egypt. 

Unlike Joseph, Ali sent his family off alone. He stays behind in Gaza to continue his work. 

That same night, as Israeli tanks surrounded the previously declared “safe zone” in the middle area, multiple journalists posted their goodbyes, just in case they don’t get another chance to write their own eulogies.

If we had a depiction of Joseph like the Pietà, we would find its analog in Khaled Nabhan’s goodbyes to his beloved granddaughter, who was murdered in an Israeli airstrike just before her fourth birthday. He rubs his beard against her face, clearly trying to make her laugh. 

When she doesn’t grab onto his beard to play their favorite game, he kisses her cheeks, her nose, and her forehead one last time before her burial. Even now, he keeps her earring pinned to his shirt pocket, holding a memory of “the soul of my soul” close to his heart.

Where is God in this catastrophe? I cannot count the times I have borne witness to tragedy, listening for God’s voice and hearing only silence.

And yet, I have read many updates from Gazans relaying news of the murder of another friend, colleague, or family member. After the initial lament, they reiterate in the next breath that “Allah suffices me, and He is the best disposer of affairs.” 

I cannot claim to hear the voice of God in these moments, but I understand that in the wake of the world’s silence, there is little else that Gazans have left. 

Instead, I will tell you that, in the moments of reprieve between airstrike explosions and ambulance sirens, I have heard the voices of Palestinian men singing. I have seen journalists and doctors consoling distressed children in overwhelmed emergency rooms. Although these men turned their faces away so the little ones wouldn’t see, they wept.