Gaza Christians face hardships
Many Christians hope to leave Gaza in the wake of the Hamas takeover.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza’s tiny Christian community is keeping a low profile this Christmas, traumatized by the killing of a prominent activist in the wake of Hamas’ takeover of the coastal territory.
Few Christmas trees are on display, churches are holding austere services and hundreds of Christians hope to travel to the moderate-controlled West Bank to celebrate the holiday in Bethlehem. Many say they don’t plan on returning to Gaza.
“We have a very sad Christmas,” said Essam Farah, acting pastor of Gaza’s Baptist Church, which has canceled its annual children’s party because of the grim atmosphere.
About 3,000 Christians live in Gaza, an overwhelmingly conservative Muslim territory of 1.5 million people. It has been virtually cut off from the world and its residents driven deeper into poverty since the June takeover by Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States.
Christians and Muslims have generally had cordial relations over the years in Gaza, but that relationship has been shaky since Hamas seized control and tensions were exacerbated with the recent death of 32-year-old Rami Ayyad.
Ayyad, a member of the Baptist Church, managed Gaza’s only Christian bookstore. In early October, he was found shot in the head, his body thrown on a Gaza street 10 hours after he was kidnapped from the store.
He regularly received death threats from people angry about his perceived missionary work — a rarity among Gaza’s Christians — and the store was firebombed six months before the kidnapping.
No group claimed responsibility for the killing, and no one has openly accused Hamas of persecution. But Christians fear that the Hamas takeover, along with the lack of progress in finding Ayyad’s killers, has emboldened Islamic extremists.
Hamas has tried to calm jittery Christians with reassuring handshakes and official visits promising justice.
Hamas “will not spare any effort to find the culprits of this crime and bring them to justice,” said spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. He insisted the killing was not religiously motivated.
At the Baptist Church on Sunday, just 10 people attended the regular weekly prayer service, down from an average of 70. There was no Christmas tree in sight.
Farah said the church’s full-time pastor, along with his family and 12 employees of Ayyad’s store, have relocated to the West Bank, where President Mahmoud Abbas heads a pro-Western government.
Community leaders say an unprecedented number of Christian families are already migrating from Gaza.