Three Years without Christmas in Gaza

As Christmas approaches, Gaza’s historic Christian community is preparing for the holidays. Yet for the third consecutive year, Israel is preventing Gaza’s Christians from making their religious pilgrimage to Bethlehem, regarded in the Bible as the birthplace of Christ.

Only two churches are currently operating in Gaza, the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius, and the Catholic Church of the Holy Family. They are currently sheltering approximately 900 Christians who fled their homes since the beginning of the Israeli bombardment of the Strip. Gaza’s Christian community, which is among the oldest in the world, only numbers at about 1,000 individuals.

Throughout the war, many Palestinian Christians in Gaza City refused to flee south. They endured harsh and difficult conditions during the Israeli ground operations in Gaza City, but chose to remain despite their churches being repeatedly bombed and damaged.

The most devastating attack occurred on October 19, 2023, when the Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City was targeted, resulting in the deaths of 18 people. Around 500 Palestinian Muslims and Christians were sheltering in the church at the time. Deep sorrow still grips Christians in Gaza, caught between the memory of the church bombing and the pain and suffering Gaza has endured for over two years.

Salwa Ayad, 55, from Gaza City, says: “I used to celebrate the holidays with my colleagues at work and with my family…We would wait for permits from the occupation to allow us to pray at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which is considered one of the main celebrations of the holidays.”

After being displaced from her home in the beginning of the war, Ayad took refuge in the Greek Orthodox Church. For Ayad and other Christians in Gaza, the holidays also bring a reminder of those lost in the church bombing.” We’ve been deprived of celebrating the holidays for the third year now. I don’t think there’s any joy left for the holidays. We still miss the Christian martyrs in this church. The building is still destroyed and reminds us of them every day.”

Ramez al-Souri, 47, from Gaza City, is also haunted by the Israeli bombing of the church, which killed all of his three children. “Life stopped when I lost my children. That night was my last,” he told BreakThrough News. “On the evening of Thursday, October 19th, two years ago, my children were sleeping in the building that was targeted. I was in another building with my sick father when I heard the explosion. I ran towards the building, trying to save my children, but I couldn’t save any of them.”

More than two years later, the pain of the loss still lingers with al-Souri and his wife. “We lost everything during the war: our homes and workplaces. I lost my children, and my wife developed high blood pressure from the intense grief,” he said. “I’m trying to survive by traveling abroad. I don’t know if I’ll ever return to Gaza, but I need to recover from what I’ve been through.”

Out of all of Gaza’s survivors, children are among the most greatly affected. “I lost my friends in the war, including Issa al-Souri, who was killed in the bombing of the church along with his father and mother,” 13-year-old Layla Anton of Gaza City told BreakThrough News. “We long for the Church of the Nativity and to visit Ramallah, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem. We haven’t been there for three years, and we are deprived of that because of the war.”

She added: “We, Christian children, are like Muslim children. We share the loss of our homes and schools, and we experienced famine and displacement throughout the war. The church was our refuge, and we lost our rights as children during the war.”

For Christians who have managed to flee Gaza, the sense of separation from community and home is amplified during the holidays. Kamel Ayad, 41, now lives in Egypt, but said he longs to return home to Gaza, “I crossed the Rafah border crossing into Egypt before it was occupied and destroyed. Since then, I think about returning to Gaza every moment. We can’t stay away from it; it’s our whole life.”

Like so many others in Gaza’s Christian community, Ayad was personally affected by the bombing of the Greek Orthodox Church. “The moment the church was bombed was difficult for all Christians and Muslims in Gaza,” he stressed to BreakThrough News. “They crossed all boundaries in their targeting and spared no one. In that bombing, I lost my cousin, her husband, and their child. An entire family was wiped off the civil registry… That’s why we decided to leave until the war ended, but the war dragged on.”

As Christmas approaches, Ayad said his hopes to return home endure, “Gaza used to be beautiful in every way, its streets and places decorated with the joy of Christmas and the New Year. Gaza has been missing everything beautiful for two years and more. We hope that this will be the end of the sorrow and wars in Gaza, that these holidays will bring us peace. These are times of peace and love, and what Gaza deserves is peace and security.”