Israel Kills Christians, Too

Israel’s violent oppression of Palestinians of all religious backgrounds has been thoroughly documented over the past 75 years. In 1948, during the creation of Israel, Zionist terrorist militias known as the Haganah, the Irgun, and the Stern gang violently uprooted and destroyed over 800 Palestinian villages and forcibly displaced and ethnically cleansed between 800,000 to 1,000,000 Palestinians from Palestine. Palestinians remark this event as the “Nakba,” which translates to “catastrophe.” Israel’s systematic ethnic cleansing campaign was planned thoroughly and ensured that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would cease to return to their homeland. Those same terrorist militias were absorbed into what is now the Israeli Defense Forces.

When you examine the propaganda machine that is the Western media, Israel is almost always portrayed as the only vibrant democracy in the Middle East. Zionist fabrication has posited Israel’s settler colonial campaign as a victim — a shining democracy amid an unstable region plagued with wars. Israel is perceived as a beacon of freedom, threatened by hostile entities who stand in the way of its colonial desires. It boasts itself as a place where Jews, Muslims, and Christians dare to coexist and live freely and happily together, side by side. 

While this perception sounds almost surreal, a magical place where the three Abrahamic religions can coexist harmoniously, Palestinians — alongside the international community — have proven Israel’s reality is quite the contrary. Israel claims to be a haven for Christians in the Middle East while simultaneously killing and ethnically cleansing Palestinian Christians.

Christmas in Bethlehem

Palestinian Christians are known to be descendants of the first followers of Christ. The West and Israel try to paint Israel’s colonization of Palestine as some sort of biblical manifest destiny while also disregarding the Palestinian Christians that Israel kills and displaces. There lies a staunch division between Western and Eastern Christianity, where the mass slaughter of certain Christian groups in the East is often ignored, tolerated, and heavily benefited Western nations. We’ve seen this play out through the genocide of Armenians in Armenia and Artsakh, as well as the genocide of Assyrians.

Evangelical Christians, some of the most passionate Zionists in the world, are relentlessly pro-Israel and completely disregard the Palestinian Christians whom Israel oppresses. One of the most prominent pro-Israel groups in America is the “Christians United for Israel” organization.

This ardently Zionist group came into fruition in February of 2006 and was created and founded by John Hagee, an Evangelical pastor from Texas. Just last year, in October, the organization accumulated over $3 million in funds for Israel following October 7th.

There lies a twisted infatuation that Evangelicals have with Israel. Evangelicals believe that the Zionist colonization of Palestine is a biblical fulfillment, an ode for the return of Christ and the beginning of the rapture. Evangelicals perceive Israelis as “God’s chosen people” and Palestinians as flotsam, bait for an intended Armageddon, believed by Evangelicals as the last war between “good” and “evil” following the Day of Judgement. Today’s genocide in Gaza is perceived as a biblical prophecy.

Palestinian Christian gravesites destroyed by Israeli settlers

Gaza’s Christians are known to be the oldest Christians in the world. The Palestinian Christian community in Gaza has dwindled dramatically as Israel indiscriminately bombs the Gaza Strip. Reports say there are approximately around 800 Palestinian Christians left in Gaza. Israel’s relentless genocide puts Gaza’s Christians at risk of being entirely wiped out.

Since the genocide in Gaza began, churches, mosques, hospitals, and schools — once thought to be places of refuge and safety for Palestinians — have been explicitly targeted and destroyed by Israel.

Back in October, 2023 Israel bombed and heavily damaged Gaza’s oldest church, a Greek Orthodox church located in the Zaytoun Neighborhood. The church was being held as a place of shelter and safety for Palestinians escaping Israeli bombardment. Over 200 Palestinian men, women, children, and elderly sought refuge. 18 Palestinians were massacred, several being children.

A well-known flagrantly false notion constantly tossed around is that Palestinian Christians don’t exist. Israeli officials and diplomats will go as far as denying their existence. Just 4 months ago, the Jerusalem deputy mayor made a preposterous claim that there are no Christians nor churches in Gaza and that Hamas was the primary reason for driving them out. This is after Israel leveled churches, bombed Christian schools, and murdered thousands of Palestinians in Gaza. This is a typical case of Zionist projection.

The Holy Family Church in the Gaza Strip. Photo in public domain.

Today, only 3 churches remain in Gaza, and all of them have sustained immense damage. Palestinian Christians celebrated Easter recently in the remains of one of their last standing churches. Israel kills Christians, too. Regardless of whether you are a Palestinian Christian, Muslim, or Atheist, it is the existence of the original inhabitants of a colonized land that threatens the colonizer. 

Every single Palestinian is a reminder of the past — a reminder to Israel of what was there before them and what refuses to leave. 

Palestinian Christian Villages Remembered 

Al-Dalhamiyya was one of many Palestinian Christian villages wholly uprooted during the Nakba. It was a flourishing village in Tiberias, in the Galilee district. Known for its boosting economic life enriched with the cultivation of an array of fruits and vegetables — the village had a population of 410 Palestinian Christians.

Al-Dalhamiyya had ancient churches where Palestinians would observe Christmas and Easter. During the Nakba, Israel obliterated the village in its entirety, and its inhabitants were either killed or forcibly displaced. Today, three Israeli settlements now surround the abandoned remains of the village.

Iqrit was another ancient Palestinian Christian village perched on the Lebanese border in the Galilee district. The village had bountiful lands surrounding it; villagers were known for planting fig and olive trees, and the land surged with wheat, barley, figs, olives, and grapes. Oak and pine trees filled its midst. Iqrit was also known for a private elementary school built and run by the village’s Greek Catholic Archdiocese. Just like Al-Dalhamiyya, the village was destroyed and ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian Christian population.

Today, the Israeli settlements “Shomera,” which was founded in 1949, a year after the creation of Israel, “Even Menachem,” “Goren,” and “Gornot Ha-Galil” border and stand on top of this once beautiful village.

Kafr Biram was a Palestinian Maronite Christian village located in the sub-district of Safad in Northern Palestine. Kafr Biram stood a little over 7 miles away from the Lebanese border. During the Palestinian Nakba of 1948, Israeli terrorist militias incessantly bombed Kafr Biram. Palestinians were alarmed by the sound of bombs and immediately began fleeing their village for safety. Israel intended to uproot the village entirely, relentlessly bombing Kafr Biram as Palestinians watched overhead. One Nakba survivor from Kafr Biram said, “We climbed up the hill, overlooking the village, it was a dark hour…it was a black hour…They demolished our homes; they deprived us of any hope of returning.” 

Palestinian men, women and children must carry their possessions after being forcibly removed from their ancestoral lands, Bettman archives

Iqrit, Al-Dalhamiyya, and Kafr Biram are just a couple of hundreds of Palestinian Christian villages that were utterly destroyed to make way for the settler state. The wickedness of Israeli occupation against Palestinian Christians is no different than Israel’s cruelty against their Muslim counterparts. From the bombing of churches, the desecration of holy Christian sites and Christian graves, preventing Palestinian Christians from accessing their sacred sites during holidays, and the same apartheid system that all Palestinians are subjugated to, Israel is in no way, shape, or form a beacon of democracy nor a haven for Christians.