A somber Christmas for Gaza’s Christians

Ryan Jones 28/12/2011 The few remaining Christians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip marked a very somber Christmas this year, reports The Guardian’s Pheobe Greenwood from Gaza City. Greenwood is told by most local Christians that Hamas effectively cancelled Christmas after seizing control of Gaza in 2007, and that any open celebration of the Christian holiday is met with threats of arrest, or worse. “People here do not celebrate Christmas anymore because they are nervous,” Imad Jelda, an Orthodox Christian, told the reporter.