In Bethlehem, shepherds watching their flocks by night are a dying breed | World news | The Guardian

"The change has been huge," he says. "Before the [Israeli separation] wall was built, I had 300 heads. I remember how we used to start our way down to the Dead Sea early in the morning. On that hill, we used to stop to take a nap under the trees when the sun got too hot."

The hill he points to is Har Homa, a Jewish settlement built in the 1990s where 20,000 people live.

Jawad Badr, the head of the veterinary department at the Palestinian ministry of agriculture in Bethlehem, explains that in five years the shepherds have lost a third of their sheep. "This business is not profitable any more. Owing to the droughts and the lack of grazing areas, the shepherds are forced to buy fodder, but the prices are too high," he says.

The Palestinian Authority, he adds, cannot afford subsidies apart from a couple of free shots of vaccines a year.

If shepherds have become a kind of endangered species in Bethlehem, 73-year-old Carlos Nicola Sarras is an even greater rarity. He is one of the few remaining Christian shepherds in the area. His house sits next to the barrier that cuts Bethlehem and Beit Jala from the west. It is surrounded by half a hectare of land, where his sheep "go out to breathe some air".

Sarras, who despite his situation wears a permanent smile on his face, says: "This cannot be called herding."