GAZA CITY, Palestine

Grief and desperation have overtaken the Gaza Strip in a season that is usually marked by merriment, as Israel continues its unrelenting attacks on the besieged enclave, where one Palestinian Christian Ibrahim Al-Amash summarized the somber situation by saying: “There is no holiday spirit here in Gaza.”

During the ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, a large number of Christians in the Strip were killed and injured by Israeli airstrikes and direct shooting operations by the Israeli army.

Since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip, killing more than 20,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 53,320, according to health authorities in the enclave.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins with half of the coastal territory's housing stock damaged or destroyed, and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely-populated enclave amid shortages of food and clean water.

Fears of extermination

“At the beginning of the war, we took refuge in the Church of St. Porphyrius in Gaza City, but the church was targeted by Israeli warplanes which resulted in the killing and injuring of a large number of people,” Amash, 45, told Anadolu.

“There is no safe place for Christians or Muslims here in Gaza,” he said.

Amash expressed the “fear of genocide” saying: “There are new massacres every day.”

“I have lost many relatives and friends to this war,” he said. “I have never witnessed destruction of this magnitude before in my life.”

“This is the most vicious war I have ever witnessed. I don’t know what to say. There are dead people everywhere,” said Amash.

He explained that the Christian community is very small in Gaza.

“In this war, we are threatened with annihilation by Israeli bombing,” he said.

“As the birthday of Jesus Christ approaches, the hearts of the Christians in Gaza and the rest of Palestine are nowhere around the holiday spirit,” said Amash, stressing that “even if the bombing stops, we will not celebrate, we will only pray for the end of the war, for peace, so that people can return to their homes."

An Israeli sniper killed a mother and her daughter and injured seven others Saturday in the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip, said the local Latin Catholic Church authority.

The incident was deplored by Pope Francis, who suggested that Israel was using “terrorism” tactics in Gaza.

Continuous attacks

This is not the first incident in which Christian places of worship were targeted.

The Israeli army targeted on Oct. 21 the Church of St. Porphyrius in Gaza, which is the oldest Orthodox church in the city, killing at least 18 Christians, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

The army also targeted the Orthodox Cultural Center in the Rimal neighborhood in southwestern Gaza City, which led to the destruction of large parts of the center.

British MP Layla Moran said in a statement on X last Friday that some of her relatives were among the 300 victims trapped in the Catholic Church in Gaza City.

“My family in the Catholic Church in Gaza city are reporting white phosphorous and gunfire into their compound,” said Moran.

“Soldiers are at the gates and there was a fire when they hit one of the (already dysfunctional) generators. There is no water left. There are 300 people there. We don’t know why this is happening. Are they going to be expelled from a church just days before Christmas??!” she added.

Christmas celebrations canceled

Christian communities in Palestinian territories announced days ago the cancelation of Christmas celebrations, including the lighting of the Christmas tree, due to the war in Gaza, in a message of solidarity from the heads of the Christian churches.

The heads of Christian churches, including Bishop Atallah Hanna, Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, decided to cancel only the festive aspects of Christmas, including festivals, celebrations and decorating and lighting Christmas trees, while preserving the religious dimensions of the holiday, in light of the war in an exceptional decision, according to a statement by the churches.

Hanna said no one has the authority to cancel Christmas, because it is a very important holiday in the Christian Church, whether according to the Western calendar on Dec. 25 or according to the Eastern calendar on Jan. 7.

The resolution aims to convey a strong message of solidarity to all Christian churches in the world, calling for prayers for Palestine in light of the difficult circumstances it is witnessing.

Although the Christmas tree will not be lit in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, there are initiatives in some churches to light a tree in the colors of the Palestinian flag or with titles bearing “Justice and Peace.”

Christians represent a small percentage of the population in Gaza, with about 1,000 living in the besieged coastal enclave, the majority of whom are Greek Orthodox, while a much smaller percentage are Roman Catholics, Baptists and other Protestant denominations, according to a 2014 survey conducted by the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA).

*Writing by Ikram Kouachi