Samira 40 is a doctor practicing in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem. She has very fond memories of her years as a medical student in Jordan. Although she finds it hard to talk about it now Samira explains how she spend eight years of her life in an Israeli prison for opposing the Israeli occupation. Her husband was also imprisoned for ten years. Samira saddens as she recalls the soldiers of the IDF destroying her house in the middle of the night and taking them both away. They leaved in a refugee camp at the time. Samira’s mother raised her five children during her long imprisonment. Bethlehem, Israel, 2012.
The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is one of the oldest continuously operating churches in the world. The structure is built over the cave that tradition marks as the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth, and thus it is considered sacred by Christians. The structure is actually a combination of two churches, with a crypt beneath the Grotto of the Nativity where Jesus was supposedly born: On April, 2002, during the second Intifada some 50 armed Palestinians wanted by the IDF locked themselves in the church, holding 200 hostages (also Palestinians). Because of the sensitivity of the building the IDF did not break into the building, but prevented the entry of food. The siege lasted 39 days in which many of the hostages tried to escape from the building. Some of the gunmen were shot by IDF snipers. After lengthy negotiations it was agreed that the gunmen would be evacuated to Gaza or Cyprus in exchange for the release the hostages. Bethlehem, Palestine, 2012.
Two accounts in the New Testament describe Jesus as being born in Bethlehem. According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus' parents lived in Nazareth and travelled for the Census of Quirinius to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, after which they returned home. The Gospel of Matthew accounts that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and fled later to Nazareth to escape persecution. Matthew says that Herod the Great, told that a 'King of the Jews' has been born in Bethlehem, ordered the killing of all the children aged two and under in the town and surrounding areas. Joseph is warned of this in a dream, and the family escapes this fate by fleeing to Egypt and returning only after Herod has died. Bethlehem, Palestine, 2012.
