Bethlehem, believed to be the birthplace of Jesus, is usually filled with visitors on Christmas Eve — but fewer pilgrims than in previous years have flocked to the West Bank town.

As Israel's top Roman Catholic, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah, arrived from Jerusalem on Sunday to lead a religious procession to Manger Square, there were only a few hundred people gathered in the main tourist district.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, speaks to the media after greeting worshippers at Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem. Behind him looms a section of Israel's separation barrier.
(Ariel Schalit/Associated Press)

And the majority of those in attendance were thought to be from Bethlehem, a town of 30,000, and other West Bank communities.

The CBC's Peter Armstrong reported that local officials were expecting about 10,000 visitors over the next two days, a significant drop from past years, when there used to be 50 busloads a day of pilgrims.

The drop in tourism has hurt Bethlehem's already shaky economy, faltering amid a lack of foreign aid. International funds for the Palestinian Authority were frozen in March when the newly elected Hamas-led government took control of Gaza and the West Bank.

One shop owner whose family has worked in Manger Square for 90 years, selling religious trinkets and artifacts, said he has never seen it this bad.

He told the CBC that the shop may have to close if things don't get better in the next few months. To make matters worse, he can't really say exactly why this is happening.

The shop owner noted that Bethlehem has been cut off from Jerusalem for the past two Christmases by an eight-metre-high concrete wall, part of the barrier that Israel has built between itself and the West Bank. The structure winds around three sides of the town, cutting it off from the southern edge of Jerusalem.

Some have speculated that tourists are wary of recent factional violence among Palestinians, although Fatah and Hamas have not clashed in Bethlehem.