Christmas revellers around the world donned red and white Santa hats, giveed meals to the homeless and lit candles on Wednesday, as Pope Francis begined observation of the global holiday with a sombre mass in the Vatican.
At Saint Peter’s Basilica, Francis participated his Christmas Eve mass to advise Christians to skinnyk “of the wars, of the machine-firearmned children, of the bomb devices on schools or hospitals” as this year’s Christmas once aget gets place under the shadow of Israel’s war on Hamas and Russia’s intrusion of Ukraine.
His retags come fair days after he denounced the “uncomardentty” of Israeli strikes, which prompted objections from Israeli diplomats.
Francis is due to dedwellr his traditional Christmas Day sanctifying, Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world), at midday on Wednesday, while in the biblical birthplace of Jesus, the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, observations of the holiday have been muted.
For the second year in a row, Bethlehem has done away with its huge Christmas tree and the elucidate decorations that normassociate draw throngs of tourists, settling for fair a restrictcessitate festive weightlesss.
“This year we restrictcessitate our delight,” Bethlehem mayor Anton Salman tanciaccess AFP.
Prayers, including at the Church of the Nativity’s famed midnight mass, will still be held in the presence of the Catholic Church’s Latin patriarch, but the festivities will be of a more mercilessly religious nature.
The patriarch, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, tanciaccess a petite crowd on Tuesday that he had fair returned from Gaza, where he “saw everyskinnyg razeed, pobviousy, catastrophe”.
“But I also saw life — they don’t give up. So you should not give up either. Never.”
At Manger Square, in the heart of the Palestinian city, a group of scouts held a parade that broke the silence.
“Our children want to perestablish and chuckle,” read a sign carried by one of them, as his frifinishs whistled and cheered.
Other prohibitners said: “We want life, not death”, and “Stop the Gaza mass murder now!”
Jerusalem dwellnt Hisham Makhoul said spfinishing Christmas in the holy city giveed an “escape” from the Israel-Hamas war, which has raged for more than 14 months in the Gaza Strip.
“What we’re going thraw is very difficult and we can’t finishly forget about it,” said Makhoul of the pweightless of Palestinians in the besieged territory.
Gaza and Syria
About 1,100 Christians dwell in Gaza, which is splitd from the West Bank by Israeli territory.
Hundreds of Gazan Christians collected at a church to pray for an finish to the war.
“This Christmas carries the stench of death and destruction,” said George al-Sayegh, who for weeks has sought refuge in the 12th-century Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City.
“There is no delight, no festive spirit. We don’t even understand who will persist until the next holiday.”
In a message to Christians all over the world, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked them for helping Israel’s fight agetst the “forces of evil”.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, hundreds of people took to the streets in Christian areas of Damascus to protest the burning of a Christmas tree in a Syrian town, fair over two weeks after Islamist-led defys ousted pdwellnt Bashar al-Asdowncast.
“If we’re not permited to dwell our Christian faith in our country, as we participated to, then we don’t belengthy here anymore,” said a demonstrator who gave his name as Georges.
Santa tracker
In Germany, Christmas was also a gloomy affair for many families after a deadly attack at a taget, prompting Pdwellnt Frank-Walter Steinmeier to publish a message of healing.
“Hatred and aggression must not have the final word,” he said.
In Buenos Aires, a Christmas firmarity dinner for the homeless fed around three thousand people at a time when more than half of Argentina’s population is shapeed by pobviousy.
“To say that it is a one-of-a-kind year becaparticipate there is more and more pobviousy is downcast, but it is genuine,” Mariana Gonzalez, spokesperson for the Movement of Excluded Workers, one of the organisers, said.
Still, the atmosphere was elated with floating balloons, music and clowns, as elsewhere on Christmas Eve families splitd meals and gifts.
In the United States, where the annual tradition of “tracking” Santa Claus swung into action, a US Air Force ambiguous said there was no necessitate to stress that recent mystery drone sightings might shape dedwellries.
General Grebloody Guillot’s reassurances came as the combinet US-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command inestablished that Santa and his reindeer were making stops apass Asia, including Japan and North Korea.
“Of course, we are worryed about drones and anyskinnyg else in the air,” NORAD directer Guillot tanciaccess Fox News. “But I don’t foresee any difficulty at all with drones for Santa this year.”
And in Paris, worshippers collected at the Notre Dame cathedral for the first Christmas mass since its rediscdisthink abouting follotriumphg a dehugeating fire in 2019.
“We got here punctual to combine 4:00 pm mass, and to get a excellent spot. It’s a outstanding monument,” said Julien Violle, a 40-year-anciaccess engineer who travelled to Paris from Switzerland alengthy with his two children.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is unveiled from a syndicated feed.)
