A Christmas without lights, under the bombs and with the only consolation of memories for the last 650 Christians still living in Gaza. In the early 2000s, before Hamas took power in the Gaza Strip, there were 15,000.
At this time, a large Christmas tree still stood in Unknown Soldier Square, attracting crowds of festive people, both Christians and Muslims. Witnesses from Gaza City say the square is now unrecognizable. In place of the grass there are pits dug by military bulldozers, piles of earth and tracks left by tanks, while nearby you can see the remains of the former Legislative Council headquarters, which was blown up. Only the elderly remember these years because Hamas later banned the public display of Christmas trees, which have since then only been displayed in Christian institutions.
According to local sources, the shopping center in the capital is also in ruins. There, after the Christmas festivities at the Christian Youth Cultural Center on Via Jalaa, we usually continued the evening in a famous restaurant. This mall is now a pile of blackened ruins.
Even greeting the last remaining Christians in Gaza by telephone has become a problem due to the raids and prolonged disruptions to local lines. Apparently, in the small Catholic community of Gaza (as well as Bethlehem in the West Bank), Midnight Mass is celebrated as tradition dictates, but without a separate ceremony and without lighting. According to available information, there are about ten nuns in the community, but the priest remained stranded in the West Bank.
Therefore, we remain entrusted with the Christmas nights in which we walked near the Orthodox Church of San Porfirio, symbol of the centuries-old Christian presence in the Gaza Strip, or in the characteristic streets of the Old City. Meanwhile, San Porfirio suffered damage to a side building in an Israeli bombing raid, while the Al-Omari Mosque (another landmark in the city's history) was badly damaged. A Christmas marked by sadness for the more than 20,000 victims, plus another 10,000 missing under the rubble.
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