'People are sad and broken inside. They don’t have the spirit to celebrate Christmas'

In a Christian Palestinian village, a brewery battles the West Bank’s economic collapse and rising settler violence

Madees Khoury in the Taybeh Brewery in the occupied West Bank. Picture: Hannah McCarthy

In the small Christian Palestinian village of Taybeh, Madees Khoury is busy bottling beers at her family’s microbrewery when the Irish Examiner visits. 

Decorations and tinsels mark the entrance to the small factory, but there is little sign of Christmas elsewhere in Taybeh, one of the world’s oldest Christian communities.