Source: www.persecution.org
Date: April 4, 2024
Gaza (International Christian Concern) – As the conflict between Israel and Hamas enters its sixth month and fears of famine become a reality, Christians in Gaza are asking themselves a recurring question with a new sense of urgency: should they stay, or should they leave?
So far, the battle has left more than 100,000 people dead or injured, with thousands more missing, and it has completely devastated Gaza’s infrastructure.
Recently, in the northern region of the Gaza Strip, an internationally recognized famine has set in, with dozens of children and nursing mothers confirmed dead from severe acute malnutrition. Humanitarian aid to the north remains severely impeded and limited, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians in dire need of critical medicine, clean water, and food to survive.
The majority of Gaza’s small Christian community has been sheltering in the two standing church buildings in the northern region of Gaza City, an area that has experienced some of the fiercest fighting and famine. They have struggled to survive off food reserves and the limited humanitarian aid that has reached them, including aid from concerned Christian organizational partnerships worldwide. Some of Gaza’s Christians have already joined the reported thousands who have crossed into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing.
With the famine expected to worsen, Gaza’s Christians are torn between leaving their land, home, church, and community behind to find safety and a new life elsewhere or remaining in the conflict and risking everything to continue to be a light in the ongoing darkness and hope to live to see an end to the death and destruction.
HOW TO PRAY: Pray for Christians to have wisdom as they sort through every difficult aspect of making such a decision. Pray for their safety and the safety of everyone living in Gaza, and pray for an end to the ongoing conflict. Pray for provision for those facing famine in the region. Pray for a swift and peaceful end to this conflict. Pray for protection for the Christian community remaining in Gaza.