Last year’s Christmas celebrations were also limited to religious rituals due to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which Israel launched on October 7, 2023.
Head of the Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs, Dr. Ramzi Khouri said on Saturday that Christmas celebrations in Palestine will be limited to religious rituals due to the ongoing Israeli genocidal war in Gaza.
“Christmas celebrations across the Holy Land will only include religious rituals, as was the case last year,” Khouri said in a statement.
The head of the church affairs committee accentuated the importance of unity of Palestinians “amidst the immense suffering and pain caused by the ongoing genocide in Gaza” to reaffirm “the shared struggle and destiny of the Palestinian people.”
Khouri highlighted in the statement “the grave atrocities committed by Israeli occupation forces, whose military aggression has persisted for over a year,” in the besieged Gaza Strip.
He noted that this went in parallel with an escalation of the policies of the “Israeli extremist right-wing government” in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, which aims at displacing Palestinians.
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Khouri urged the international community to pressure Israel “for an immediate and decisive action to end the genocide against the Palestinian people” in Gaza.
The Palestinian official emphasized the need for “a just and lasting solution that guarantees security, stability, and the full realization of the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights, as stipulated in international laws and agreements.”
Khouri also called on churches around the world, to dedicate “this Christmas to prayers and appeals for the end of war and the establishment of lasting peace” and to remember in their Christmas prayers “the children, women, and families of Palestine who have been killed, wounded, displaced, or remain missing.”
He highlighted the immense suffering caused by the “Israeli killing machine”, which “has deprived the Palestinian people of the joy of celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.”
Khouri ended his statement by expressing hope in a better future for the Palestinian people where they “can enjoy freedom, justice” like all other people of the world, and “the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.”
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‘This is Annihilation’
Last year’s Christmas celebrations were also limited to religious rituals due to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which Israel launched on October 7, 2023.
Delivering his Christmas message to the congregation at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem on December 23 last year, Reverend Munther Isaac said what would have been a time of joy, is instead a time of “mourning, we are fearful.”
“Gaza, as we know it, no longer exists,” he said. “This is an annihilation. This is genocide.”
He said: “We are tormented by the silence of the world,” adding that “leaders of the so-called free lined up one after the other to give the green light for this genocide against a captive population.”
Not only did they make sure to pay the bill in advance, they (also) veiled the truth and context providing the political cover,” he added. The “theological cover”, he said, was provided with the “Western church” stepping into the spotlight.
It does so, he explained, by misusing theological concepts and biblical texts for its own political purposes.
“Here in Palestine the bible is weaponized against us, our very own sacred text.”
Genocide Continues
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 44,176 Palestinians have been killed, and 104,473 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
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Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
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