With Gaza’s health system collapsing and food nearly gone, Catholic and Orthodox churches shelter families with nowhere else to go.
(LifeSiteNews) -- Gaza’s Christian community is under severe strain, with Catholic and Orthodox churches overwhelmed by displaced families, food supplies dwindling, and some forced to return to shattered homes amid relentless warfare.
Joseph Hazboun, regional director for the Pontifical Mission in Palestine and Israel, told Vatican News that nearly 2 million Gazans – 90 percent of the population – are now displaced, living in “overcrowded, unsafe conditions” and facing “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity.
“Health conditions are rapidly deteriorating,” Hazboun wrote in a late May report. “Infants, the elderly and pregnant women are at heightened risk of disease, malnutrition and preventable deaths.”
Holy Family Church – the only Catholic Church in Gaza – is sheltering around 400 people. St. Porphyrios Orthodox Church – which was struck in an allegedly accidental IDF airstrike in 2023, killing 18 Palestinian civilians – holds another 150.
Both are so overcrowded that some families have chosen to return to their ruined homes. Humanitarian aid is scarce, distributed only twice a month, and over 90 community kitchens have shut down due to fuel shortages.
Since the war began in October 2023, conditions have steadily worsened. More than 52,000 Palestinians are estimated dead.
With most of Gaza’s schools have been destroyed, the U.N. reports that over 1 million children are in urgent need of psychological care. Holy Family has opened a small school and kindergarten, trying to preserve some sense of normalcy for the children.
St. Porphyrios has done the same, providing food, basic healthcare, and moments of play for children living through the trauma.
The Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) is coordinating efforts with local churches and hospitals, including the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, now running 24/7 to cope with trauma injuries, burn victims, and infections caused by dirty water and unsanitary shelters.
Pope Leo XIV and Cardinal Pietro Parolin have both called for a ceasefire and humanitarian access. “The cry of mothers,” Leo said at the end of May, “of fathers who clutch the lifeless bodies of children and who are continually forced to move in search of a little food and safer shelter from bombing, rises ever more intensely to the sky.”
He has referred to Gaza at least half a dozen times since his election.
As bombardments continue and resources vanish, the besieged churches of Gaza remain the last refuge for Christian families with nowhere else to go.
