Christians gather in Gaza and talk to the Pope every night

Every night without fail, the cell phone rings at the Holy Family church in Gaza, and the parish priest answers. The voice at the end of the line belongs to Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church and spiritual leader to the world’s flock of 1.4bn people.

For more than a year, the pope has been calling the church every night to comfort the hundreds of Palestinian Christians who are sitting there as fighting rages in the streets outside and Israeli warplanes destroy much of the city. those around.

For those who live in difficult conditions inside the church building and now prepare for their second Christmas surrounded by war, the regular meeting with the pope assures them that they have not been forgotten.

Attallah Tarazi, a retired surgeon, said: “It calms our fears and makes us feel cared for. “The Pope gives us his blessings and prays with us if the relationship is good.”

The entire Christian community of Gaza – about 1,000 people – sought refuge in October 2023 in the building of the Catholic Church of the Holy Family and the nearby Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, the only two houses of Christian worship in the area.

The Pope said of the conflict in Gaza in his annual Christmas greetings on Saturday: “Yesterday these were bombed. This is evil; this is not a war.” He told CBS Sixty Minutes May’s program: “I speak every night at seven o’clock with the parish of Gaza.” . . They told me what was happening there. Very hard, very hard. . . Sometimes they are hungry and tell me things. There is a lot of suffering.”

On December 22, the head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, led a Christmas mass at the Church of the Holy Family in a rare foreign visit authorized by the Israeli authorities. to enter the besieged field.

Despite the war outside, cassock-clad priests hold regular mass in two churches in Gaza under houses painted with biblical images. Some lessons have started in church buildings for children who have left the second year of school after the war caused by the attack of Hamas on October 7 2023 in Israel, in which a group of Palestinian fighters killed my people 1,200 and captured about 250 captives.

More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed by the brutal attack that Israel launched on the Gaza wall.

The number of Christians who have taken refuge in churches has decreased this year because many have been able to leave the Rafah road with Egypt, which was open until it was captured by Israel on May 6.

George Akroush, an official of the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, said that left about 650 people in the two churches. Families sleep on mattresses and live on canned food and lentils, with no fresh meat, fruit or vegetables. Charities send supplies, while other charity processions are organized by the patriarch.

“We are trying to send warm things because it is very cold in Gaza,” said Akroush. “We want to give them boots and children’s clothes and warm clothes. There is also a great lack of mattresses, but the Israelis refuse to let them in, even though many people sleep on the floor.”

An Israeli official said on Tuesday that an aid truck had arrived ahead of the cardinal’s visit. “The shipment included mattresses, warm clothes and other winter supplies, as well as other types of aid selected by the mission,” they said.

Akroush said the patriarch tried to send supplies for between 6,000 and 7,000 people in each of their processions so help would also reach Muslim neighbors. He said: “We do not distinguish between Christians and Muslims.” “This is the mission of the church.”

Tarazi refused to leave Gaza to join his older children in Australia: he wanted to see the aftermath of the war and still hoped his belongings were in the bag. it can be passed on to his children. But he didn’t expect to spend another Christmas in the church.

He said: “I didn’t think we would be here for so long, sleeping to the sound of bombs every night.” Many shells lie near the church.

Built in the 1960s to accommodate Christians among the Palestinian refugees forced to flee to Gaza when Israel was established in 1948, the Catholic church was named after the Holy Family across the region during the their flight to Egypt in the Bible.

Its complex includes a monastery, a school and many other buildings, one of which housed 73 people with disabilities. Rocket attacks in December 2023 destroyed the building, and its residents moved to another inside the compound, where the nuns still care for them.

Large areas of Gaza City have been reduced to rubble by Israeli bombing, and many residents have fled south on Israeli orders.

The status of churches as houses of worship and the Pope’s interest in the welfare of trapped Christians seem to have provided some protection. But even then, artillery fire, shells and missiles reached both places, and people were killed in the first months of the war.

In December 2023, an old woman and her daughter were shot dead by a sniper while walking inside the Holy Family building. The Latin Patriarch accused Israeli forces of carrying out the killings, but the Israeli army denied involvement.

Two months before that, an Israeli plane destroyed houses in the village of Saint Porphyrius, killing 17 people. Israel has promised to investigate, but no results have been announced.

Attallah al-Amash, an accountant, lost his seven-month-old daughter, Joelle, and his wife’s parents in the attack. He then took his wife and three-year-old son, Ibrahim, to the Catholic church.

“I feel like everything is bad, and there’s a heavy feeling from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed,” Amash said. “We are waiting for (the war) to end, but it is not over.”

His boy is playing with other children in the church yard, but Amash said he and his wife “have nothing to think about and nothing to do, we just sit”.

The building in Gaza City where the family lived was destroyed in July. Since then they have rarely left the compound. Amash has hopes for a future outside of the area. He said: “If I can find a job in another country, I will go.” But now we have to wait for the war to end.

Samer Tarazi, who lives in Saint Porphyrius, was preparing to go to Australia when the Rafah road was closed. His wife and three children had already left, so now the family is separated.

A member of the large Tarazi Christian clan in Gaza, and a cousin of Attallah Tarazi, he leaves Saint Porphyrius to film for his media services company when he deems it safe.

“There is complete destruction outside,” he said. “There is not a single building that is not damaged, or that has windows. I would say 80 percent of the buildings are no longer viable.”

He also wants to leave Gaza after the war because “Christians are becoming more and more of a minority”.

But Arkoush, of the Latin Patriarchate, said it was too early to write the future of the Christian community in Gaza. He expects another 150 people to leave after the war, but said many chose to stay when given the chance to leave when the crossing was open.

“They said: ‘This is the land of our ancestors and we are not a foreign nation. I expect the numbers to go down, but for Christianity to disappear – I don’t think so. ”

Additional reporting by Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv. Cartography by Aditi Bhandari