JERUSALEM (RNS) — Every year before Easter, Elias Hazin’s phone would ring with pilgrims booking trips to visit Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. This year, Hazin says, there have been only cancellations. The tourism industry in Bethlehem is “basically dead,” said Hazin, co-owner of the Bethlehem Star Tours & Travel agency on Manger Square.
Tourism to Bethlehem and surrounding areas has been deteriorating since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. According to one estimate, Bethlehem was losing approximately $2.5 million daily in tourism revenue in mid-2025, and unemployment jumped to 31%. But the Iran war could be the final blow to Bethlehem’s tourism industry — and to the already-dwindling Christian population as well, locals say.
Almost every tourist hotel, restaurant and souvenir shop in Bethlehem is closed now, due to the Iran war. “If the residents who depend on tourism for their livelihood are unemployed, (that) affects everyone else in the community,” said Hazin. “The truth is that people are only buying the necessities to keep them going as long as possible.”
Anton Salman, who served as Bethlehem’s mayor from 2017 to 2022 and 2024 to 2025, said that more than half of the area’s 30,000 Christians work in the tourism sector, which has traditionally accounted for 70% of the local economy. While thousands of tourists visited Bethlehem during the last Christmas season, thanks to the October 2025 Israel-Hamas ceasefire, the Iran war and widespread flight cancellations have scared away tourists.
Since the Oct. 7 attack and Gaza war, Salman said, he has seen many Bethlehem-area residents …