Judith Sudilovsky

Following a series of attacks on Christians in the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces Dec. 16, including the killing of a mother and daughter at a Catholic church, the Israeli Defense Forces said that it “takes claims regarding harm to sensitive sites with the utmost seriousness.”

As the humanitarian crisis escalates in Gaza — amid tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered near Gaza’s border with Egypt, attempting to flee, and a health care system on the verge of collapsing — a Gaza priest warned that Christians in Gaza are suffering a lot.

The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, expressed his happiness at the late-night hostage-exchange agreement reached between Israel and Hamas Nov. 21, and said he hoped it would lead to end to the war which broke out after an Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on 22 southern Israeli agricultural communities along the border with Gaza.

As the world prayed for peace in the Holy Land Oct. 27, Pope Francis called for the war to halt and prayers to continue during the Angelus Oct. 29, as death toll in Gaza passed 8,000 and Israeli troops gradually increased their ground activity in the Gaza Strip, without calling it an “invasion.”

The Sister of Charity of the Incarnate Word from Peru, who is serving in the Catholic parish in Gaza, recalled the pain of watching the funeral of Christians killed in an Oct. 19 blast at a Greek Orthodox church.

While Christian faithful across the globe prayed and fasted for peace in the Holy Land, a rocket struck the Christian hospital in Gaza City where hundreds of people were being treated, but also where hundreds were taking shelter. U.S. President Joe Biden is on his way to Israel to make a quick visit Oct. 18.

Bodies still remain strewn along roads and in communities as authorities go through the arduous and gruesome process of identifying so many bodies, some of which first responders have said were mutilated and burned beyond recognition.