QALANDIA, West Bank, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Under Israeli guns and grey skies, a Palestinian chorus sang Christmas carols on Monday at a military checkpoint blocking the road to Bethlehem.
QALANDIA, West Bank, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Under Israeli guns and grey skies, a Palestinian chorus sang Christmas carols on Monday at a military checkpoint blocking the road to Bethlehem.
“We are singing for peace. We are against war. We are now singing against checkpoints,” said Gabi Baramki, one of the founders of the Jerusalem Chorus. “It’s a very sad Christmas.”
The 50 Palestinian Christmas carollers from the West Bank city of Ramallah usually perform their annual holiday concert in East Jerusalem and in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus some 20 km (12 miles away).
But the singers said the presence of Israeli forces in Bethlehem, reoccupied three weeks ago after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 11 people on a Jerusalem bus, and military roadblocks, meant they had to seek another venue.
Under a shop awning next to the Qalandia checkpoint near Ramallah, they sang “Joy to the World” and Mozart’s Coronation Mass as Israeli soldiers looked on. Choirmaster Salwa Tabri, frail and grey-haired, sat on a black chair in the muddy street and conducted the performance. The music was punctuated by the blare of car horns from Palestinian drivers protesting against delays at the roadblock.
“This is really very, very terrible,” Tabri told reporters. “Everybody has to have the right to go to the holy places and pray there. We are not allowed although they say they allow freedom of entrance to the holy places — but it’s not true.”
Israel says checkpoints are meant to deter Palestinian militants from attacking Israelis while Palestinians and human rights groups call roadblocks collective punishment.
TROOPS LIKELY TO STAY IN BETHLEHEM FOR CHRISTMAS
Israel has said it would ban Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, whom it accuses of encouraging attacks on its citizens in a Palestinian uprising for statehood, from traveling from his Ramallah headquarters to Bethlehem for Christmas.
Arafat denies the allegations and his cabinet said Israel’s occupation of Bethlehem was killing the holiday spirit in the town.
An Israeli diplomatic source said on Sunday Israeli troops in Bethlehem would keep “normal security procedures in place” while allowing Palestinian Christians in the West Bank and Israeli Christians into the city for Christmas.
“We came here to show the whole world that we cannot cross this checkpoint to Bethlehem and we urge them not to believe the Israeli propaganda,” said Nadia Abboshi, piano player in the Jerusalem Chorus.
