Israel celebrated the Muslim ‘Feast of Sacrifice’ by slaying sixteen Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank — most of them members of the small Islamic Jihad movement targeted in retaliation for the firing of rockets into Israel. Israel also reacted coolly to an offer of a truce from Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas movement ruling Gaza. The pilgrimage period is traditionally a time of ceasefire and conciliation.

In spite of the sword Israel holds over the heads of Palestinians and the lack of religious freedom in the occupied territories, they do their best to honour their religious feasts. Apart from the 2,700 permitted to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca and 500 Christians issued with permits to travel to the West Bank for Christmas, the 1.5 million Gazawis were imprisoned near the Strip.

Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip caused shortages of foodstuffs, particularly of livestock for the traditional Eid sacrifice meant to commemorate the Prophet Ibrahim’s readiness to slay his son at God’s command. He responded by providing the patriarch with a ram for the sacrifice.

Muslims normally slaughter sheep, goats, cattle and camels, share two-thirds of the meat with relatives and friends and give one-third to the poor. Israel eased its blockade to permit the import of cattle but most were under two years old, which, according to Muslim custom, are too young to sacrifice. Many of the most needy — 80 per cent of the Gaza population lives below the poverty level — went without meat on the one day of the year they expected to have enough to eat.

Muslims from the West Bank were not allowed to go to al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem for Eid prayers. They are isolated and cut off from families and friends by Israel’s 560 permanent checkpoints, the 720 km-long wall, 149 settlements, 96 outposts, 27 military bases and settler-only bypass roads. But as in Gaza, the Israelis relented a little to mollify the Christian West by issuing 8,000 travel permits to Christians from Bethlehem and easing checks on Jerusalemites and foreign pilgrims travelling to the not-so-little hill town for Christmas festivities.

Foreign Christian pilgrims, who brave Palestine for Christmas, are warned by travel agents not to mention to Israeli security folk that they intend to visit Bethlehem in the West Bank. Pilgrims risk hours of questioning on departure if they do. Few have the opportunity to choose carved olive wood and mother-of-pearl souvenirs at Palestinian shops in Manger Square. All but four are boarded up.

Although the world’s powerful politicians have ignored what happens in Palestine at this season of the year, Israel’s harsh policies have not gone unnoticed in the graffiti artist community in London. This year a holiday gallery dubbed “Santa’s Ghetto” moved from Oxford Street to a shabby chicken restaurant in Bethlehem and exhibited works by famous and infamous artists who have donated proceeds to help the poor. Thirty artists have been adorning Israel’s eight-meter high wall round the city with anti-occupation images.

One portrays an escalator carrying people to the top of the wall, another massive beatle-like insect dismantling the wall. The prime mover of the protest, a mysterious Briton identified as “Banksy”, first adorned the wall with protest art in 2005. He spray painted an Israeli soldier checking the identity card of a donkey, a little girl in a pink dress frisking an Israeli soldier, and a dove of peace, olive branch in its beak, wearing a flack jacket with a bull’s eye over the bird’s heart. One of the other exhibitors has painted an undecorated Christmas tree enclosed by the wall which is itself surrounded by the stumps of trees felled by the Israeli army.

The artists intend to boost the number of pilgrims this Christmas season. Around 20,000 are expected, a fraction of the numbers who visited Bethlehem in the 90s. The optimistic Bethlehem municipality has tidied the town, erected a four storey Christmas tree, decorated Manger Square, opened a Christmas bazaar in Star Street, and scheduled a programme of performances by US and Palestinian choirs. But hymns, coloured lights and tinsel cannot hide the wall or make invisible the soldiers and settlers who make life miserable for Palestinians in Palestine.