Good Christians, bad Christians
The aftermath of the bombing of Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius church in Gaza, killing 17 people, 20 October 2023
Mayssoun Sukarieh writes in Mondoweiss:
On October 19, 2023, the Israeli military bombed the Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church in Gaza City, the oldest church in Gaza, built in the 12th century. Five hundred Palestinians, of all faiths, had been taking shelter in the church; at least 18 people were killed in the attack. Two weeks later, Israel bombed and destroyed the Orthodox Cultural Center, also in Gaza City.
In December 2023, the Israeli military laid siege to the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza City, where about six hundred and fifty Palestinians were seeking refuge; Israeli snipers shot and killed a mother and daughter who were sheltering at the church. Israeli forces have also bombed and damaged the Gaza Baptist Church, Near East Council of Churches, Missionaries of Charity Convent, as well as the Anglican-run Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza — where close to five hundred Palestinians were killed.
Over four months of bombing, three percent of the approximately one thousand Palestinian Christians living in Gaza have been killed, with many more injured and displaced, leading community leaders to raise concerns about the possible erasure of the entire Palestinian Christian community in Gaza as they plead for support from the global Christian community.
The current Israeli war on Gaza continues a long history of attacks on and elimination of the Palestinian Christian community in Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank. Since 2007, the small but long-standing Christian community in Gaza has declined from three thousand to about one thousand living in the Strip today; in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the larger Palestinian Christian community of about 50,000 has faced a similar decline over the past few decades.
In large part, this population decline has been driven by the stresses of Israeli occupation, apartheid, and siege in Palestine and facilitated by the greater welcome extended by many Western countries to Christian as opposed to Muslim Palestinian emigrants.
However, as Ramzy Baroud points out, the elimination of the Palestinian Christian community is also convenient for Israel, as it “is keen to present the ‘conflict’ in Palestine as a religious one so that it could…brand itself as a beleaguered Jewish state amid a massive Muslim population in the Middle East.”