“We are living in a nightmare”: An Eyewitness Account of Life in War-ravaged Gaza
For the Christian community in Gaza, as for all Gazan citizens, life for the last few weeks has been – and continues to be – an ordeal of unrelenting fear, loss, heartbreak, and trauma. One Christian there sent us this personal account:
On 7 October 2023, we woke up shocked with news of the attacks and the beginning of a new war. We knew that day that this war will not be a small one. Israel then officially announced a war on Gaza strip. The situation started to deteriorate and getting worse day by day.
Bombardments were everywhere, targeting all areas, houses, streets and schools.
Damage to Gaza City. (Palestinian News & Information Agency (Wafa) in contract with APAimages, Wiki Commons)
Two days later, we decided to leave our homes and go to Saint Porphyrius Church (our Orthodox church) to take shelter there, hoping it is a safer place than back home. By then, almost 15 homes of Christian families were totally destroyed by bombings.
All of a sudden, Israel requested to evacuate the north of Wadi Gaza to the south. 1.2 million people live in the north. We have no place, no church and no safe shelter in the south, so we decided to stay in the church. All Christian committee took shelter in the two churches in Gaza, the Orthodox church hosted 400 Christians and the Catholic church hosted another 400 Christians. Both the churches are located in the old city, in the north of Wadi Gaza.
All Christians in Gaza are purely civilians who don’t want to harm anyone. We had some hope that as long as we stay together in the church, we would be SAFE!!
Sheltering at Saint Porphyrius Church.
On Tuesday 17 October 2023 Al Ahli Arab Hospital, located in the old city near the Orthodox church (our shelter) was targeted without warning by the Israeli air strikes. 4,000 civilians were evacuated there and nearly 300 were located inside the Ahli Baptist church inside the Ahli Arab Hospital. 900 murdered and 1,000 injured, most of them were children and women.*
On Thursday 19 October 2023 at 8:00 p.m. without any warning, the scout building in the Orthodox church compound was bombed by airstrikes.** That building included almost 92 Christians. We spent 10 hours looking for our families, friends and relatives who were inside the building. We succeeded to get most of them alive, but unfortunately 18 were dead and 14 injured (most of them are children and women).
The next day was even more sad and awful, we had the biggest funeral in the history of the Gazan Christians ever - burying 18 of our families and friends at once. Until now, we still believe that we are living a nightmare.
Four of those deaths were children who were not baptized, so the priest decided 10 days later to baptize all hosted children who are not. On Saturday 28 October 2023, we had a group of 9 children for baptism in the Orthodox church. This baptism occurred because we were afraid that any moment we might be dead.
For the first time in all previous assaults, Israel blocked all kind of communications in Gaza including calls, internet and landlines. We had no access to any news nor information on what is going outside the church neither our friends and families outside doesn’t know if we are alive or not. Just loud noises of airstrikes all the time.
We couldn’t know whether our home was destroyed or whether our friends and relatives are still alive.
My message to the world is, “Please advocate for immediate cease-fire. There are a lot of civilians who still have hope in life and families to raise”.
* Embrace acknowledges that the cause of the tragedy at Al Ahli is disputed, that the evidence for what happened remains inconclusive and that the death toll is unclear. However, we include the writer’s interpretation of events here as it reflects the opinion and lived experience of many in Gaza.
** The IDF have stated the damage to St Porphyrius Church compound was due to an airstrike that hit a Hamas target nearby, rather than a strike on the church itself.
