2023-11-09 01:50:00
FromUniversity of Notre Damean article emerges that highlights the plight of Christians in Gaza, a group that is dramatically neglected by the international community:
Christian demographics
Between 2014 and 2021, the population of the Gaza Strip increased from 1.8 million to 2 million, according to US government estimates. However, over the same period, the Christian population declined due to extremely high levels of emigration and declining birth rates. There currently remain 1,300 Christians in Gaza, down from the estimated 3,000 before 2007. A 2014 survey conducted by the YMCA suggests that 89% of the Christian population in Gaza is Greek Orthodox, while 9.3% is Roman Catholic and 1.52% belong to Gaza. Baptist and other Protestant denominations.
History of the Christian community of Gaza
Christianity in Gaza dates back to the 4th century, and Gaza is home to some of the oldest churches in the world. Hilarion, a leading figure of early Christianity, was Gaza’s founder of monastic life in Palestine. After World War II and the founding of the Israeli state, however, large numbers of Christians left the region.
Current situation of the Christian community in Gaza
Today the Christians of Gaza are crushed on two fronts. First, Gaza is under an Israeli blockade that cripples the economy, contributing to an unemployment rate of around 50%, and severely limits Palestinians’ freedom of movement. This blockade isolates the small Christian community and prevents them from seeking solidarity with the larger Church or going to holy places. Christians in Gaza must apply for travel permits to visit families and holy sites in Israel and the West Bank during Christmas. For Christmas 2021, Israel granted permits to about half of Gaza’s Christian population. As a result, many families in Gaza were unable to travel together for Christmas.
Gaza suffered major armed clashes between Israel and Gaza militants in 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014, which debilitated its already damaged infrastructure and virtually destroyed its ability to produce goods for the domestic market. In May 2021, eleven days of fighting between Hamas and Israel resulted in many civilian casualties and destroyed essential civilian infrastructure in Gaza, such as hospitals. A 2012 United Nations report suggested that Gaza could become uninhabitable by 2020 if existing economic and political trends persist. Ten years later, conditions have not improved, yet 2 million people still live in Gaza.
On the other hand, Christians are crushed by the policies of Hamas – the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood – which came to power in 2007. The kingdom of Hamas has started an insidious process of Islamization from above and above all from below, which has deepened after the Arab Revolts of 2011 and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in neighboring Egypt.
In 2007, shortly after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, extremists twice bombed the last Christian bookstore in Gaza City and kidnapped and killed the bookstore’s owner, who had run the shop for years despite having received numerous death threats. While this level of violence against Christians in Gaza has fortunately not continued, today Christians in Gaza are being targeted on the basis of their religious faith in even more acute and systematic ways than Christians in the West Bank and Israel. Christians feel coercion to convert to Islam, while Christian women face harassment and pressure to cover their hair and adopt Islamic forms of dress. In general, Christians are made to feel like second-class citizens, despite their Palestinian patriotism and historic affinity with the land.
Responses to persecution
In Gaza, as in other parts of the Holy Land, ecclesiastical and secular responses to the Israeli blockade and the Islamization of society diverge. On the one hand, the leaders of the ancient churches believe that the only response that can guarantee their survival and the protection of their historical heritage, both architectural and cultural, is to stay. But on the other hand, many Christians who struggle every day consider emigration the only option to preserve family cohesion and survival, just as many members of the Gaza population as a whole believe that leaving Gaza is their only hope. for a better livelihood.
Christian leaders have sought to ensure the survival of a Christian presence in Gaza through strategies of association. For example, when Muslim leaders began to openly defame Christians as infidels, Christian leaders sought dialogue with both the imams of mosques and leaders of the Islamic establishment. In some cases, Muslim religious leaders have desisted from anti-Christian rhetoric. However, Hamas does not address the problem of discrimination against Christians and no measures have been taken to stop insults directed at Christians by, for example, children on the street. Christian churches have also played a patriotic and humanitarian role, emphasizing both solidarity with Palestinian forces resisting Israeli occupation and compassion for civilians affected by the conflict. During the 2014 Gaza War, for example, the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyry was opened as a refuge for people of all religious backgrounds fleeing Israeli bombing. In 2015, after the funeral in the same church of a civilian killed by an Israeli missile, both Christians and Muslims participated in the victim’s burial.
Continuing a long tradition of friendly relations between Christians and Muslims, the churches maintain courteous and respectful relations with the authorities, ensuring that on every religious holiday, Christian leaders visit their Muslim counterparts to wish them well, just like Muslim leaders they have traditionally participated in the main Christian religious celebrations. Gaza’s Christians and Muslims continue to celebrate Christmas together, despite a 2020 Hamas directive seeking to ban it. However, in essence, Gaza’s churches have little influence in dialogue with the authorities and are therefore in a weak position to hold the authorities accountable for any violations.
The Greek Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church have also played a central role in providing education to girls and boys in Gaza through their Christian-run schools. These schools, while not entirely immune to Islamization attempts, were particularly important in creating a safe enclave where Christians could receive an education without intense Islamic indoctrination. One way the Greek Orthodox Church in particular adapted to the Israeli blockade was by appointing Greek priests to Gaza parishes and encouraging them to learn Arabic upon arrival. They say foreign-born priests are less likely to face mobility restrictions than Arab priests, although cultural differences may present other problems.
Additionally, churches have sought to support their followers by establishing housing projects on land that has been donated to them, often through rental. However, they failed to help the Christian community secure employment. Indeed, many Christians in Gaza criticize Christian organizations (particularly charitable and development ones) for privileging Muslim candidates, a policy they believe is driven by a desire to please Islamic authorities and avoid bureaucratic hurdles. Many fear that, faced with the lack of work, the only solution for young Christians is to emigrate.
Secular Christians adapt to the Islamization of society in the most disparate ways. Some Christian men grow beards so as not to stand out (in other words, to cope by assimilating). Many women, on the other hand, choose resistance and refuse to wear any form of head covering, even if it means being exposed to street harassment or limiting their freedom of mobility. Despite these strategies, however, emigration, while always difficult and often impossible, remains the primary survival strategy. Many leaders fear that if the trend is not reversed, Gaza’s indigenous Christian population could become extinct.
This country profile draws on research by Dr. Mariz Tadros and on the report In Response to Persecution by the Under Caesar’s Sword project. It was updated by Joseph London at the University of Notre Dame in June 2022.
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