A Palestine without Christians?
Typically left out by mainstream media, here's a primer on the untold consequences of the current Israel-Hamas fighting in Gaza
I’m quite loath of what follows, esp. since this is an issue that is very much under-reported by anyone. Much like the below piece:
I was all the more surprised when I saw the below piece on the website of Bergens Tidende on 21 Dec. 2023.
Translation, emphases, and bottom lines mine.
The War Could Spell the End for Gaza's Christian Minority
Originally published by NTB, 21 Dec. 2023 [source]
Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip has had dramatic consequences for Christian Palestinians and could mean the end for one of the oldest Christian congregations in the world.
Right after the crucifixion of Jesus, according to the Bible, the apostle Philip traveled to Gaza to preach.
‘In the 200s, Christian hermits and monks settled in Gaza, which at that time was a metropolis and an important trade hub in the Middle East’, explains Kjetil Lillesæter.
He is a lifestyle journalist at NRK and has written a master's thesis on ‘Gaza's Forgotten Christians’ [orig. Gazas glemte kristne]. He has often been with them in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Stand Your Ground
According to old sources, the first of several monasteries in Gaza was founded in the year 340. There, monks offered rest to pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem and Syria.
In the year 425, Bishop Porphyrius had a Greek Orthodox church built in Gaza, which for the next couple of hundred years became one of Christendom's most important centres of learning, Lillesæter adds.
When Gaza was conquered by the Arab general Amr ibn al-'As in 637, many Christians converted to Islam. But not all. A small Christian congregation held its ground and was still there when the European Crusaders arrived around 1100.
The Crusaders built a new church of St. Porphyrius in the Zeitun ward of Gaza City, and it has stood there for all the years since. Today, the church is considered one of the world's oldest and has been a Christian house of worship continuously for 1,600 years.
‘The Christians in Gaza say that they are the indigenous people of the area’, says Lillesæter.
Fewer and Fewer Remain
When Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, around 6,000 Christian Palestinians were said to have lived in Gaza. Today, less than 1,000 remain, probably only around 800.
The enclave nevertheless has several churches, Christian schools and kindergartens, and the Christian minority also runs the Al-Ahli-Arab hospital and several other institutions.
Now, however, it may be over. With the latest Israeli attacks, Lillesæter fears that Gaza's 2,000-year Christian history may soon be over.
Israel Attacks
On October 13, Al-Ahli-Arab Hospital's management received orders from the Israeli army to evacuate staff and patients, which they refused.
The following day, the cancer ward was heavily damaged by an Israeli mortar attack, and on 17 October the hospital's courtyard was hit in a rocket attack. Several hundred people who had sought refuge there were killed. No one knows for sure how many.
It has also not been determined where the rocket came from, but it was probably a Palestinian rocket. [careful here, it’s a Human Rights Watch link that is cited; also, don’t get lost here, for the story is about the Christians of Gaza]
Two days later [19 Oct.], the area of the Church of St. Porphyrius, where many of Gaza's Christians had sought refuge, was hit by an Israeli rocket. At least 18 people were killed, and the parish house was heavily damaged.
Among the victims were 26-year-old Viola Al 'Amash, her son, and her husband. She was employed by the Catholic aid organisation Caritas.
The Pope is Calling
Several Christian Palestinians with passports from other countries have since been allowed to leave Gaza, but the remaining ones are holding their ground in Gaza City.
‘Most of them have gathered there in the Catholic Church of the Holy Family. They are like a big family. They support and help each other within the high walls which are now surrounded by Israeli soldiers’, says Lillesæter.
The Argentine Gabriel Romanelli is a priest in the church and recently told in an interview that Pope Francis calls daily to hear how things are going with those who stay there.
On 16 Dec. this church was also attacked, first by an Israeli tank. The Mother Teresa sisters' convent, where 54 disabled people lived, was razed and the further fate of the residents in need of care is unclear.
A few hours later, the area was shelled by Israeli mortars. Two Christian women, Nahida and her daughter Samar, were killed, and seven other refugees were injured in the attack.
‘This is terrorism’, said an outraged Pope Francis the next day.
This is the End
Lillesæter has been in sporadic contact with friends in Gaza during the war, but they are now afraid to attract attention by talking to the outside world:
I believe that this war means the end of the Christian minority in Gaza, without Christian leaders in the West seeming to care much.
This is also the case in Norway, he believes:
Support for Israel is strong in conservative Christian circles in Norway, especially in some free church circles. But also within the [mainstream Lutheran State] Church of Norway there are many who believe that the Jews are God's chosen people and who therefore support the waging of war against the Palestinians.
That these circles are more concerned with Jews than with their Christian Palestinian co-religionists, Lillesæter experiences as a paradox:
The Christians in Gaza say that they feel forgotten, not least by their fellow believers in the West.
Bottom Lines
This is so sad, it’s breath-taking.
Just think about it: attacking houses of worship is a crime, killing civilians who shelter in such buildings is criminal, too. Razing convents is criminal, too, by the way.
The Pope calls these actions, carried out by the IDF, ‘terrorism’.
The most telling parts of the above piece are, in my opinion, the following comments by Lillesæter:
I believe that this war means the end of the Christian minority in Gaza, without Christian leaders in the West seeming to care much.
The best treatment I’ve read about the Evangelical Zionists is by Chris Hedges (see his American Fascists, which came out in 2007), and if you haven’t read it, there’s a good conversation with (the not unproblematic) Democracy Now channel from February 2007: see here.
Support for Israel is strong in conservative Christian circles
That these circles are more concerned with Jews than with their Christian Palestinian co-religionists, Lillesæter experiences as a paradox:
‘The Christians in Gaza say that they feel forgotten, not least by their fellow believers in the West.’
You know what I think about when I read such lines? The three-fold denial of Peter:
Let’s not mince words here, for it’s 23 Dec.
What happens in the Middle East is an atrocity wrapped in inhumanity and couched in sanitising language. It’s a testament to the decay of decency, charity, and, yes, morality.
And, since I mentioned the ‘m word’, let’s not forget that what is happening these days is utterly devoid of anything even remotely associated with anything like it.
Where are those who will stand up and decry this descent into madness?
Let’s not be silent, if ‘only’ for the historical record.
Thank you so much for writing about this my friend. I have tears in my eyes for this silent genocide that Christians are cheering on in churches all across Australia. I recently wrote this:
"I am also despairing because right now, all over Australia, churches are teaching Christians to hate although they do not call it ‘hate.’ They call it ‘divine retribution’ and are using scripture to justify genocide, a true ethnic cleansing in word and deed. Many of these churches, even if they did not fall to psyop-jab, are falling to psyop-Holy War. Both are Satanic murder-suicide operations started by the same captured governments for the purposes of making us fight each other to leave humanity, and our souls, in a smoking, craterous ruin."