Israel and Hamas have been waging war since gunmen from the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages,

In November, over a year into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a report by the Gaza-based Community Training Center for Crisis Management produced a grim statistic: “Nearly all children in the embattled Palestinian enclave believe their death is imminent — and nearly half of them want to die.”

Faith leaders and residents in Bethlehem are grappling with how to mark the festive holiday while fellow Palestinians continue to be killed.

Hundreds gathered at the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem in the West Bank as the leader of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land marked the second Christmas Midnight Mass under the shadow of the war in Gaza.

Bethlehem is an important center in the history of Christianity, but Christians make up only a small percentage of the roughly 14 million people in the area.