EAST n MIDDLE EAST n MIDDLE EAST n MIDDLE EAST n MIDDLE EAST n MIDDLE EAST n MIDDLE EAST n MIDDLE EAST n MIDD

Baptists in Gaza Request Urgent Prayer, Extend Assistance

B

aptists in Gaza appealed to Baptists and other Christians to pray for their city that

endured heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas between July 8 and August 26. The Baptist World Alliance sent an initial sum of US$20,000 in assistance. “Due to the desperate situation which is unfolding in Gaza, I must write to you again to ask for more prayers,” wrote Hanna Massad, former pastor of the Gaza Baptist Church who lives in exile in Amman, Jordan. “Fear is everywhere and nowhere is safe.” He reported that neighbors took shelter in his Gaza home.

“Many people are running out of food,” Massad stated. He had a relief plan in place in collaboration with the Gaza Baptist Church. His food relief efforts were extended to 130 Christian families and some 1,000 Muslim families.

The Greek Orthodox and the Catholic

churches, Massad said, “have opened their doors to refugees who have fled from the bombing. Some flee because their homes have been destroyed, others because the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) has told them to go because their area is about to be bombed.” He said the war was the worst the city has experienced. “The situation in Gaza is much worse than during any other conflict before.

l

Massad urged Christians to PRAY:

for the end to the conflicts

l l

for churches that have opened their doors to the displaced

l for those

offering relief for the

traumatized

for the family of Jalila Ayyad, a Christian killed by Israeli

bombardment

Above: Shaymaa al-Masri, five years old, at a-Shifaa Hospital, Gaza. Shaymaa was injured when her uncle’s house was bombed in the early afternoon of July 9.

(Photo courtesy of Muhammad Sabah, B’Tselem’s field researcher in the northern Gaza Strip)

Below left: A kindergarten in central Israel during a rocket attack (Photo courtesy of Israel Defence Force)

I was on the telephone to some friends in the church in Gaza and on the phone these dear brothers are breaking down in agony due to the trauma they are suffering from the constant bombardment. Even amongst those who have not been killed, many lives will never be the same again.” An escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began

following a series of events, including the continued blockade of the Gaza Strip by the Egyptian and Israeli governments, continued rocket attacks from Gaza, the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, the subsequent kidnapping and murder of a Palestinian teenager and the arrest by Israel of nearly all of Hamas’ West Bank leaders. On July 8 the IDF launched Operation Protective Edge in the

Gaza Strip. More than 2,100 Palestinians have died and about 10,000 wounded, 80 percent of them civilians. Sixty four Israeli soldiers and three civilians have died, while 651 IDF soldiers and 23 civilians were wounded. The war claimed its first known Christian casualty, Massad reported. “Mrs Jalila

Ayyad became the first person from the Christian community to lose her life under the bombardment from Israeli bombing. Her son has also been seriously injured. This is just one of so many tragedies happening now in Gaza on a daily basis.” The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated

that in the Gaza Strip, 520,000 Palestinians, approximately 30 percent of Gaza’s population, may have been displaced, of whom 273,000 were taking shelter in 90 schools. More than 485,000 internally displaced persons are in need of emergency food assistance. Massad urged Christians everywhere to pray for the end to the conflicts; for

churches that have opened their doors to those who are displaced; for those who are offering relief; for those who have been traumatized; and for the family of Jalila Ayyad.

He also asked for prayer “that Christians will be strong in faith and be seen as beacons of hope and love” and “that, in the midst of war, the believers will know the peace that only Christ can bring.”

He also asked for prayer . . . that in the midst of war, believers will know the peace that only Christ can bring.

OCTOBER/DECEMBER 2014 21