In one of the defining moments so far in Israel’s ongoing war against Gaza, a deadly explosion at al-Ahli Arab Hospital on October 17 killed nearly 500 people.
Two days later, Israel bombed St. Porphyry Church, the oldest in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 18 people.
The deadly attacks on the hospital – an Anglican institution – and church have shone a spotlight on the enclave’s struggling Christian minority, which, like the rest of the Gaza Strip, is under attack by relentless Israeli bombing.
The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem called the attack on the church a “war crime.”
The Christian community has been shaken, but most have not left the besieged city, which boasts a rich Christian heritage dating back two millennia.
So who are the Christians in Gaza?
How many Christians live in Gaza and where do they come from?
The number of Christians in Gaza has declined in recent years. Today, only about 1,000 remain, a sharp decline from the 3,000 recorded in 2007, when Hamas took full control of the enclave.
According to Kamel Ayyad, spokesperson for St. Porphyry Church, the majority of the population comes from Gaza itself. The others fled here after the creation of the state of Israel, which led to the displacement of about 700,000 Palestinians – an event they call the Nakba, or “catastrophe.”
Hamas rule has led to an Israeli-led land, air and sea blockade, accelerating the flight of Christians from the poverty-stricken enclave. “It has become very difficult for people to live here,” says Ayyad. “Many Christians have left for the West Bank, America, Canada or the Arab world, in search of better education and better health. »
While most Christians in Gaza belong to the Greek Orthodox faith, a smaller number worship at the Holy Family Catholic Church and the Gaza Baptist Church. The first recently broadcast a video of the children of the parish praying, with the sound of bombs in the background.
There is a certain fluidity within the Christian community in Gaza, with many families comprised of members of different faiths. Fadi Salfiti, whose family fled Nablus for Gaza in 1948, attended all the churches.
“On Sunday morning we went to the Orthodox church, in the afternoon we went to the Catholic church and in the evening we went to the Protestant church,” he said.
Salfiti was attending a youth conference in Madrid when Israel launched a ground offensive in 2008. To this day, he remains in Spain, where he now works as a management trainer. The attack on Saint Porphyre killed his cousin’s three children: Majd, 10 years old; July, 12; and Suhail, 14 years old.
How long have Christians lived in Gaza?
Gaza’s Christian heritage dates back to when the faith was a persecuted sect promising salvation to the oppressed.
In the Bible, after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the apostle Philip traveled the desert road from Jerusalem to Gaza to spread the good word. According to Scripture, Philip was present at the wedding at Cana in Galilee, where Jesus turned water into wine.
The Saint-Porphyre church is the oldest in the enclave. It was founded in the 5th century after the death of the eponymous bishop who converted the city’s pagans to Christianity by burning idols and temples. After the Persian conquest of the 7th century, the church was transformed into a mosque. It was then rebuilt by the crusaders in the 12th century.
The Christians of Palestine, numbering 50,000 in the occupied territories, are sometimes referred to as “living stones”, a metaphor first invoked by the apostle Peter, the former fisherman called to become a disciple of Jesus, to describe the role of believers in construction. the spiritual house of God. Today, the term refers to their special status as guardians of a faith born in their land.
How are relations between Christians and Muslims in Gaza?
Living under siege, the Christians of Gaza bear witness to a spirit of solidarity that has united religions in their struggle for survival and their dream of freedom.
“We are all Palestinians. We live in the same city, with the same suffering. We are all under siege and we are all the same,” Ayyad said.
Generally speaking, the Christian community has always played an important role in Palestinian life, producing luminaries such as Issa El-Issa, founder of the highly influential Jaffa-based Falastin newspaper, a leading force in Palestinian Arab nationalism during the British Mandate, and Edward Said, who exposed Western complacency towards the Orient in his seminal book, Orientalism.
In Gaza, too, members of the small community play an outsized role.
“They tend to be very educated and very active in the business world and the voluntary sector,” says Salfiti.
The YMCA, for example, which provides sports, artistic, educational and social activities to Palestinians in Gaza of all faiths, is run by Christians. The Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, devastated by last month’s Israeli air raid that left hundreds dead, is owned and run by Anglicans.
Cut off from the world under the blockade imposed by Israel, the community has sometimes felt vulnerable. In 2007, the country was shaken by the murder of Rami Ayyad, manager of the Teacher’s Bookshop, a Baptist store in the neighborhood that had also been the target of a firebomb a few months earlier. No group claimed responsibility for the killing, which Hamas condemned, saying it “would not allow anyone to sabotage” Muslim-Christian relations.
But the killers were never brought to justice.
However, overall, communities are united in resisting their collective confinement in what has been called the world’s largest open-air prison.
Just as Muslims were denied permission to visit Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, Christians were also barred from visiting sacred sites like Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, revered as the birthplace of Jesus. Both communities are cut off from family members in the West Bank.
What is the current situation of Christians in Gaza?
Under the recent Israeli bombings, Christians and Muslims sought refuge in Saint Porphyre.
After the bombing, they all moved to the Church of the Holy Family, located 400 meters away. Around 560 people are now sheltering there, says Nisreen Anton, general director of the church project.
The priest Gabriel Romanelli has been stuck in Bethlehem since the start of the war and remains in contact with his flock. In a message recorded on October 24, he called for an end to the bombings and the opening of a humanitarian corridor.
“Please let them know that the parish…is full of ordinary people and Muslim neighbors. They are civilians who pose no danger to anyone,” he said.
Like many Palestinians in Gaza, Anton is determined to stay put. Huddled in the church with her three daughters aged eight, nine and 12, she says the situation is getting worse every day.
“Christians are suffering like any other people in Gaza,” she said. “This is our land and we will not leave it. Can you imagine that someone called you and forced you and your family to go somewhere else?
“We will stay.”