A Christian in the Holy Land today... What changed after 7 October 2023?

The situation in the Holy Land changed dramatically after 7th October 2023. After the Hamas attacks and kidnapping of civilians in south Israel and the following nonstop bombardments of the Gaza Strip by the Israeli Army, this land fell abruptly into one of the darkest pages of its history. Death, hate, and violence seem like they have become the new kings, alongside with pain and confusion. The Christian community found itself facing this situation, both from the Israeli and the Palestinian sides. In these difficult times, we find ourselves with a lot of questions without answers. To try to answer these questions, the Vicariate for Migrants and Asylum Seekers organized an online Zoom seminar on 16th November 2023, where Fr. David Neuhaus SJ led us in reflection.

First of all, we were reminded of the importance of the Holy Land from a Christian perspective - it is the land of Christ, the land of the Scriptures, the land of the holy sites, and the land of our Christian brothers and sisters, the descendants of those that first believed in Christ, forming the first Christian communities and then spreading the gospel to all the world. This makes it impossible, both in the past and in the current times, to separate Christianity from the Holy Land, and every Christian in the world is linked to this land, even if they have never been here in person. The Holy Land is also the land of our brothers and sisters who are Jews and Muslims, who both look to this land as holy, and it is the land of the State of Israel and Palestine.

After guiding us through the history of the Holy Land, outlining a clear perspective on the historical and present social context, Fr. David invited us to remain true to the Christian values we receive from Jesus and our Holy scriptures that every single person is created in the image and likeness of God – so no one is worth more than someone else, and no life is worth more than another life. As Christians, we must abandon our prejudices and stand for the respect of every human life, and pray for lasting peace in the Holy Land. As our Patriarch clearly pointed out “Unless this problem is solved at its root, there will never be the stability we all hope for. The tragedy of these days must lead us all, religious, political, civil society, international community, to a more serious commitment in this regard than what has been done so far”. As Christians, we agree that the best tool to do so is to see every person even those different from us as the son/daughter of the same God and our brother/sister. War, indeed, is always a failure. Peace and justice must prevail.