Dozens of Christian Palestinians attend midnight mass in the Gaza Strip to celebrate Christmas, a community of about 1,000, that needs to apply for Israeli permission to travel to Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank to celebrate the birth of Jesus. RNA - Palestinian Christians in the besieged Gaza Strip have slammed Israel’s restrictions that have prevented them from traveling to the occupied West Bank for the Christmas holiday.
Other Palestinian Christians have also criticized the Israeli regime for keeping them in a limbo.
Palestinian officials say less than half of the applicants have been granted permits to leave Gaza for the biblical city of Bethlehem in the West Bank.
Around one-thousand Christians reside in Gaza, where almost two million people live under a blockade imposed by Tel Aviv.
Bethlehem is close to Jerusalem al-Quds, but cut off from the holy city by a separation wall. Israel began building the barrier across the West Bank in 2002, separating Israeli settlers from Palestinian Christians and Muslims.
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