Bethlehem is a small city in the West Bank, 9 km south of Jerusalem, on the road to Hebron, at the northernmost tip of the Hebron Mountains and on the border of the Judean Desert. It lacks springs or other perennial surface water sources and until late Hellenistic or early Roman times, depended on cisterns. The Hebrew name is Beth Leḥem (“House of Bread”), the Arabic is Bayta…