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Blake, Wm. The Lord Answering Job out of the Whirlwind. 1805.

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Christians living in Gaza fear “extinction” amid Israel’s military actions.

In 2007, about 3,000 Palestinian Christians lived in Gaza. Now, there are only about 800 to 1,000.

Mitri Raheb, pastor and founder of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem: “I’m not sure if they will survive the Israeli bombing, and even if they survive, I think many of them will want to emigrate,” adding that the Christian community is “under threat of extinction.”

Before the current conflict, the Christian community in Gaza was shrinking by 5% on an average year as young Gazans emigrated because of what they saw as oppressive Israeli restrictions.

Churches in the territory have not been spared by Israel—on October 19, the Saint Porphyrius Church was hit during an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, killing 18 people, including nine children, and injuring nearly 100 people.

Additionally, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem announced last week that an Israeli sniper murdered two Christian women inside a church in Gaza and that Israel fired rockets at a convent that cares for over 54 disabled people.

Pope Francis condemned the attacks: “I continue to receive very serious and painful news from Gaza. Unarmed civilians are subjected to bombings and shootings. And this even happened inside the parish complex of the Holy Family, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, sick and disabled people, nuns.”