Palestinian Orthodox Christians have ‘darkest Christmas in recent history’
▶ Deaths of loved ones in Gaza have left relatives overseas afraid and unwilling to celebrate festival
Palestinian Christians around the world refused to celebrate the Orthodox Christmas yesterday as the Israel-Gaza war continued to rage.
Thousands of kilometres from the Gaza Strip, in Toronto, Canada, psychotherapist Hamman Farah said he was at a loss as he watched from afar the devastating war in his homeland.
Mr Farah said the celebration of Christmas in Gaza – with decorated streets, parades, carols and giving gifts – had become a distant memory, eclipsed by the conflict that has razed much of the enclave.
Christmas “was a holy time to celebrate, but now, my family is running for their lives and on the brink of extinction”, Mr Farah told The National.
Like thousands of Palestinians whose family members have been killed during Israel’s operation in Gaza, Mr Farah has lost his great aunt and his cousin.
Since the war began, most of Gaza’s more than 2.3 million residents have been displaced, and more than 22,700 have been killed, according to the latest toll issued by Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Israel began its air and ground operation in Gaza after Hamas, which governs the enclave, attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages.
Women and children make up the majority of those killed in Gaza, the Health Ministry has said.
More than 60 per cent of housing in the enclave has been destroyed or damaged, the UN estimates.
About 30 of Palestine’s senior church leaders agreed to cancel all Christmas celebrations to protest the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“It’s impossible to celebrate and light a Christmas tree and rejoice under these circumstances,” Rev Munther Isaac, a pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, told The National.
The Orthodox Christmas is celebrated on January 7 by up to 300 million people globally, including members of the Eastern Orthodox branch, to which most Christians in the Middle East belong.
Mr Farah said his family is among hundreds of Palestinian
Christian families who are living the “darkest Christmas in Palestine’s recent history”.
His aunt Nagham, 59, and her son Suleiman, 35, were among 400 Palestinians – mostly Christians – who had sought refuge in a two-storey building in the Greek Orthodox Church of St Porphyrius complex in Gaza city.
The complex was hit by an Israeli air strike on October 19. Eighteen people were killed, and at least 20 were injured.
“Shell-shocked and injured, Nagham desperately called out for her son amid the chaos,” her sister, Hiba Farah, told The National.
Hiba has been living with her son Hamman since she left Gaza after the 2000 Intifada (uprising), which led to a violent crackdown on Palestinians by Israeli forces.
“Her screams were drowned out by the collapse of parts of the 1,600-year-old building,” Hiba said, relaying what she had been told by Nagham and others. “Suleiman took his last breath under the rubble.” The Israeli military said its fighter jets had hit a nearby militant command and control centre and that the church had not been the target of the strike.
Nagham is still in Gaza, said Hiba. She is also mourning her aunt, Elham Farah, who was killed by an Israeli sniper on November 12.
For a month before her death, 84-year-old Elham, a music teacher in Gaza, was staying with about 500 others in the Holy Family Catholic Church. As she walked to her nearby house to bring supplies, in broad daylight, she was shot in the leg.
“She called our family who were also sheltering in the church. They tried to contact the Red Cross, but the IDF had completely sealed off the area,” Mr Farah said.
“Our neighbours later told us they saw her bleeding from a window, but each time they tried to help, they were met with sniper bullets.”
Elham was left lying on the street for hours, until she eventually passed away.
“Everyone knew her. She loved to travel, but she always went back home,” Mr Farah told The National.
Another Palestinian Christian living overseas, Washington-based political analyst Khalil Sayegh, lost his father, Jeries Sayegh, at the Holy Family Catholic Church.
“Our house was bombed in the earlier days of the war,” Mr Sayegh told The National.
“Like other Christians in our neighbourhood in north Gaza, my father sheltered at the nearby Holy Family Catholic Church.
“My father’s health had deteriorated, and because of the destruction of almost all health facilities in the north, he couldn’t make it.”
With Gaza experiencing regular communications cuts, Mr Sayegh could not even speak to his father on the phone before he died on December 21.
According to statistics published by the US State Department in 2022, 50,000 Palestinian Christians live in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and about 1,300 live in Gaza. The numbers are based on media reports and religious community registries.
The emigration of Palestinian Christians has continued at rapid rates, the State Department said.
“Our livelihood here is extremely difficult,” Rev Isaac told The National.
“We’re not thriving in Palestine as a community, and because of the rising emigration, our numbers are dwindling.”
About 50,000 Christians live in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and about 1,300 in Gaza, the US State Department says
The story was published in collaboration with Egab.