Christians in the Gaza Strip
This morning, I traveled to
The rest of
The following are excerpts from Andrew Whites report, information focusing on the
current situation for Christians in the Gaza Strip:
From: Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 05:36:49
Subject:
My Dear Friends,
The situation in
I wanted to send you some pictures taken last week, but my staff rightly told me they were too awful to send. If they are too awful to send they are too awful to describe. The death, carnage and kidnappings are indescribable. What is so awful, though, is the suffering of the ordinary Christians. In the past month, the suffering has become immense. Christians have been ousted from their homes, have lost all their savings, they have been threatened and have undergone a targeted campaign to bring about death, kidnapping and removal from their homes.
The needs of the Christians in
Grace, Peace and Blessings,
Andrew White
People are thinking of how to spend the summer vacation; we are thinking of how to stockpile food, said Rana Al Najjar, a member of the Gaza Baptist Church as she made a trip to the shop on Saturday afternoon to buy what food was still available. After a turbulent week in which Fatah forces were routed by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, streets were relatively back to normal on Saturday, until reports started to spread that the borders would be sealed and people started scrambling to get a hold of the basic needs of bread, sugar, flour and gas. Prices rose quickly, as shops quickly ran out of their stockpiled goods. In bakeries customers were given a number to wait in line and were limited in the amount of bread they were permitted to purchase. Cars were moving about, people were walking the streets, talking and laughing. Along the walls of the main hospital in town, I saw old men sitting in the shade playing backgammon. The combination of the normalcy of life and fear of the unknown future make for a strange atmosphere. Yet, the greatest fear is for the poor, for they cannot afford the rising prices and many go home empty-handed.
The World Food Program reported in March that 80% of the Gaza Strip is reliant on food aid from international organizations. Help us raise $10,000 in order to bring food to those that cannot afford rising prices and are unable to provide for their families. Please do not forget that there are Christians here too, and we must stand with our forgotten brothers and sisters in their time of real need.
Philip Rizk