The sense of hollowness of the Church of the Nativity is deeper than absent tourists.

The chants and prayers are pain-stricken and desperate.

Down in the manger by the enshrined spot where baby Jesus was said to be born, a priest solemnly swings incense into the corners.

There is no beautifully-lit tree in the square outside for the second year in a row. Even in their homes, the Palestinian Christian community in Bethlehem is struggling to celebrate.

The empty spaces and lack of tourism are the shadow of 14 months of war in Gaza and a daily reminder of the ongoing devastation.

And around their family homes, Israeli settlements in the West Bank – illegal under international law – are inching closer.

‘Our country is shrinking’

“Normally we spend Christmas in Bethlehem and Jerusalem but this year there are no celebrations because of what is happening with the war. It is not nice to celebrate while people are dying,” says Alice Kisiya.

Alice is from Beit Jala, Bethlehem. For five years, her family have waged legal battles with settlers over their generational home.

“Each Christmas we had demolition because each time they come and demolish. Last year, we were celebrating Christmas there and they came and demolished our small tent,” says Alice.

She and her family are waiting for a Supreme Court ruling in January on whether they can return.

“Our country is shrinking. As Palestinian Christians, we cannot really have our freedom to move freely and it’s getting worse.”

Her words resonate as we drive along the West Bank wall on the edges of Bethlehem.

A stark reminder of the political divide that is tearing through the Holy Land.

‘It seems destiny of Holy Land is to stay divided’

On the other side of the wall from the sacred site where Jesus was born is where he was crucified in Jerusalem.

We hear that the procession of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is soon arriving through a checkpoint inside the wall into Bethlehem to the Church of Nativity.

A crowd of eager Catholics are waiting for him by Rachel’s Tomb, a sacred site for Orthodox Jews.

School children visiting the tomb are ushered off the street by elders aware of the arriving procession.

They start to sing defiantly as older students are forcefully removed from the road by Israeli police.

There is a hushed sense of anticipation and awe from those waiting for Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa to arrive from the Church of Holy Sepulchre – where Jesus was crucified – to the Church of the Nativity, where he was born in refuge.

“This is an important more than a thousand-year-old tradition,” says Tony Marcos, Dean of the Catholic Action Foundation.

As a Palestinian resident of the West Bank, Tony is not permitted to make the procession between the two holy sites.

“It seems the destiny of this Holy Land is to stay divided and these are difficult times we are living in,” he adds.

“Christmas is the season of love and the season of hope. There is big pain and there is instability – a lot of sacrifices and a lot of blood,” he says.

‘We want next year to be full of light’

The anxiety seems to dissipate as Cardinal Pizzaballa arrives.

He shakes hands with a queue of people eager to get close to the leader of the Church they cannot visit.

“This Christmas, we want people not to lose hope. It is possible to break down the hatred, the division, the contempt and the lack of justice and dignity we are experiencing here,” says Cardinal Pizzaballa.

“The prayer is to raise our gaze and to look forward, not backwards. We want the next year to be full of light – lighted in the darkness.”

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This year, the thousand-year-old tradition is more powerful than ever.

“The meaning [of this crossing] is that it is possible. Even when there are enormous and difficult walls, it is possible to pass them.”

Syria’s de facto leader has reached an agreement with the heads of rebel factions to dissolve their groups and work under the country’s defence ministry, his new administration says.

Ahmed al Sharaa, the head of the Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) group which toppled Bashar al Assad‘s regime earlier this month, met with the leaders of several of the rival factions that have been vying for influence in the country for years in the Syrian capital Damascus.

Those in attendance said their groups would dissolve, according to a statement from the new government.

The statement did not make clear which groups attended, but Syria has factions made up of Muslim Kurds and Shi’ites, as well as Syriac, Greek and Armenian Orthodox Christians, and the Druze community.

However, one major group, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), did not join the meeting in Damascus and has not agreed to dissolve.

It comes as Al Sharaa attempts to end years of civil strife and armed conflict – with the leader telling Western officials that his new government will not seek revenge against the former regime nor repress any religious minority.

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SDF launches fresh counter-offensive as fighting continues

Despite many groups agreeing to dissolve, fighting continues in the north of Syria.

The SDF, which in 2021 was estimated to have some 100,000 members, is not one of the groups set to dissolve and fall under the Syrian defence ministry.

On Tuesday it announced it had instead launched a fresh counter-offensive against the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) to take back areas it previously controlled near Syria’s northern border.

Clashes between the SDF and the SNA have intensified since the fall of the Assad regime at the start of the month, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says dozens from both sides have been killed.

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The SDF is one of the US’s key allies in the country, and is frequently used by Washington to counter a resurgence of the so-called Islamic State in Syria.

The SNA, which helped topple the Assad regime, capitalised on the fall of the previous government by quickly launching an offensive and capturing the key city of Manbij and the areas surrounding it.

Since Monday and following overnight fighting, the SDF has recaptured some villages and is just seven miles from the centre of Manbij, according to reports from commanders and rights groups.

Hundreds of people have protested in Christian areas of the Syrian capital of Damascus after a video emerged showing hooded fighters setting a Christmas tree on fire elsewhere in the country.

“We demand the rights of Christians,” demonstrators chanted as they marched through the city on Christmas Eve.

The overthrow of Bashar al Assad by rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – a group once aligned with Al Qaeda – has sparked concerns for religious minorities in Syria, but the group’s leader has insisted that all faiths will be respected.

The protests erupted after a video spread on social media showing fighters torching a Christmas tree in the Christian-majority town of Suqaylabiyah, near the city of Hama.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the men were foreigners from the Islamist group Ansar al Tawhid.

A demonstrator who gave his name as Georges said he was protesting “injustice against Christians”.

“If we’re not allowed to live our Christian faith in our country, as we used to, then we don’t belong here anymore,” he said.

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A religious leader from HTS, the leading rebel group in the coalition that toppled Assad, claimed that those who set the tree on fire were “not Syrian” and promised they would be punished.

“The tree will be restored and lit up by tomorrow morning”, he said.