Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem Condemned the Humanitarian Catastrophe in Gaza. We Should Too.
Reported By: Sophia Lumsdaine
Photo Courtesy: PBS
This December–just over 2,000 years after the birth of Christ–Bethlehem was quiet and somber. The town, which sits in the present-day Israeli-occupied West Bank, is normally bustling during the Christmas season. Tourists and Christian pilgrims, who come from all over the world to see the historic birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth, usually fill the town. But this year, Bethlehem was markedly lacking in its normal festivities. Over two months into a catastrophic war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, tensions were too high to attract many tourists, and residents of Bethlehem were too grief-stricken to celebrate.
Though Christians now account for less than a fifth of Bethlehem’s population, they were vocal in their pain, dismay, and anger about the humanitarian catastrophe bearing down on Gazan civilians. Their harsh denunciation of the destruction of innocent human life in the war stretched beyond ideology and religion. Their voices show us why, as Christians, we too should condemn the violence that has been unfolding in this region of the world.
In November, a group of Palestinian pastors from various Christian sects and denominations signed a joint letter calling for President Biden to do his utmost to bring an end to the war. “A comprehensive and just peace is the only hope for Palestinians and Israelis alike,” it stated.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem traded their routine nativity display for a scene of baby Jesus lying in a pile of rubble.
“In our pain, anguish and lament, we have searched for God and found him under the rubble in Gaza. Jesus himself became the victim of the very same violence of the empire,” Rev. Munther Isaac of the church explained. “This is his manger. He is at home with the marginalized, the suffering, the oppressed and the displaced.”
The priest of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Father Issa Thaljieh, stated that factional disputes in the church had been overshadowed by the crisis in Gaza in recent months. “[T]he message of peace is more important than ever,” he said.
With over 20,000 dead in Gaza, as reported by the Gaza Health Ministry, 1% of Gaza’s population of 2 million has now been killed in the course of three months. The war is estimated to be the deadliest single conflict in the 21st century. On average, the death toll amounts to 250 Palestinians killed each day since the war began. According to Oxfam statistics, the death toll in Gaza is double those in Syria (96 per day), and far surpasses death tolls in Sudan, Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
Of Gaza’s original population, 85% has been internally displaced, while a quarter of the population is officially categorized as starving. Thousands of men, women, and children remain buried in rubble and the United Nations warns of increasingly severe famine and disease adding deadly variables to the current situation.
According to Save the Children, an international non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting the lives of children around the world, 10,000 Gazan children have now been killed in the war, amounting to about half of all Gazan casualties.
“If you are not appalled by what is happening in Gaza, if you are not shaken to your core, there is something wrong with your humanity,” Rev. Munther Isaac said. “And if we, as Christians, are not outraged by the genocide, by the weaponization of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness, and we are compromising the credibility of our gospel message.”
George Fox University (GFU) is a Christian institution, and as such, many students and staff here consider themselves to be Christian. While recognizing the brutality of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, and keeping in mind and heart the Israeli civilian hostages still in Gaza, as Christians we too should denounce and call for an end to the unprecedented and horrific assault on innocent human life that is tearing Gaza apart.