‘Last opportunity’ to leave: Christians in Gaza face agonizing decision
Caroline MolloyIsrael has warned residents in Gaza to flee or become military targets.
Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz said in a post on X at 8:07 a.m. ET, Oct. 1, that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had surrounded Gaza City. Anyone leaving southward will be “required to pass through the IDF’s inspection checkpoints,” Katz warned, adding: “This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south and leave Hamas terrorists isolated in Gaza City itself, facing the IDF’s ongoing operations at full force. Those who remain in Gaza will be considered terrorists and terror supporters.”
Gaza City’s Christian clergy and nuns said Aug. 26, as CatholicVote previously reported, that they would stay in compounds of Saint Porphyrius (Orthodox) and Holy Family Church (Catholic) to care for people who can’t flee.
In response to Katz’s threat, Christian commentators in the U.S. expressed concern for civilians and the impossible choice they are facing.
“The Christians who have bravely remained in Gaza will be slaughtered,” Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins said in an X post. “If they leave, they will lose their ancestral homes forever. There has got to be another way to end Hamas.”
CatholicVote President Kelsey Reinhardt supported Hawkins’ remark and said that the IDF should already be aware of the Christian civilians’ intention to remain in the region.
“The heroic Missionaries of Charity are among those who have stayed behind to care for those too elderly or sick to travel,” Reinhardt stated. “In today’s day and age, it is possible to identify this community of Christians and guarantee their safety even in an area of war. @CatholicVote and @TimesofIsrael have already reported on their decisions to stay behind. This should not be news to the IDF.”
Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, the chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, has begged “Catholics and all men and women of good will” to pray for the war to end.
In an Oct. 1 statement likely prepared before Katz’s alarming threat, Bishop Zaidan said a U.S.-backed 20-point plan to end the war “recognizes the reality of the region’s interconnectedness” in its inclusion of countries surrounding Israel and Palestine.
“I am especially hopeful of the plan’s ‘interfaith dialogue process,’ which is intended to create a greater sense of community between Israelis and Palestinians ‘based on the values of tolerance and peaceful co-existence,’” the bishop said. “As Pope Leo XIV recently reminded us, the ‘deepest purpose of the Church’s social doctrine’ is a ‘contribution to peace and dialogue in the service of building bridges of universal fraternity.’”
He acknowledged that any peace plan will require everyone involved to fully cooperate, yet “as an international community and people of faith who deeply care for all our brothers and sisters who live in the land of Christ’s life, death, and glorious resurrection, we cannot lose this opportunity for peace.”
He asked for the intercession of Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom.
The Washington Post reported that the Israeli military had again warned hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the area who don’t have the money to try to find shelter in the south.
One mother in Gaza City with her children, Shaimaa Abu Haseera, said, “It seems whoever does not have the money has no right to escape,” the Post reported.
