Jerusalem is like a ghost town, says Anton Asfar. There is little traffic in its streets; tensions are high. West Bank and Israeli Arabs fear encounters with furious Israeli settlers who have been lashing out since the Hamas rampage in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
West Bank communities have been closed off by security checkpoints. Mr. Asfar, the secretary general of Caritas Jerusalem, the church’s humanitarian and development outreach effort in the Holy Land, reports that “people are afraid to go out of their houses; they go out to shop for their basic needs and come back rapidly.”
This is not the first large-scale conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in recent years, but “this feels very different from previous times,” Mr. Asfar says. The level of anger among Israelis and expressed during media analysis of the crisis, he says, is something he has never seen before. “It was really a tough massacre for the Israelis, and now they are trying their best to make the other side pay.”
“People are afraid to go out of their houses; they go out to shop for their basic needs and come back rapidly.”
Mr. Asfar says Christian Arabs have been staying indoors and attempting to avoid conflict. “They might end up in a fight with the settlers, and between the eastern side of Jerusalem and the western side of Jerusalem, it’s not easy to get around because there are police all around, searching in the cars, searching for IDs, asking you questions: ‘Where are you going? From where have you come?’”
Indeed, while outright war conditions pertain in Gaza and along its border in southern Israel, in the north, in Jerusalem and the West Bank, conditions are also fraught. Violence between Palestinians and Israeli settlers has broken out sporadically.
The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that two Palestinians were killed in the West Bank on Oct. 12 when Israeli settlers sprayed bullets at a funeral for three people killed in a settler attack the day before. Bystanders captured video of Israeli settlers swerving their cars into the funeral procession and blocking off the road before stopping and opening fire.
According to the ministry, 58 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since Oct. 7.
Mr. Asfar had his own terrifying experience since last Saturday’s violence. As alarms were raised and the security curtain came down, he was unable to retrieve his two children from school in Bethlehem, just a few kilometers away from his home in Jerusalem, cut off by closed roads and Israel Defense Forces, who were not allowing anyone into Palestinian areas besides security personnel.
Thousands of families in Gaza have taken refuge from the bombardment at United Nations school compounds; more than 600,000 Gazans have been displaced so far.
After driving from checkpoint to checkpoint, pleading to be allowed into Bethlehem, his wife finally made it through one checkpoint on foot and managed to reach the terrified children. They stayed with friends in Bethlehem overnight and Mr. Asfar was able to extract his family and return them to Jerusalem the following day. Many families were similarly affected by the security measures that followed the war declaration on Hamas, he says, and the clampdown has essentially frozen all of the work of Caritas throughout Jerusalem, in the West Bank and of course in Gaza.
He has been keeping in touch with his staff of 100 in Gaza, where Caritas sponsors a number of health, nutrition and educational programs. Describing the mission of Caritas Jerusalem, Mr. Asfar explains, “We are the social arm of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, the occupied territories and the Palestinian territories.”
He adds, “In Gaza we have a medical center that provides primary health care.” Caritas also sponsors mobile medical clinics that in normal times travel all over Gaza, reaching out especially to its most impoverished communities, and sponsors a gamut of other social services.
None of his mostly Muslim team members have been injured so far, but as Israeli artillery and missiles continue to pound the Gaza Strip, he will be unable to assist them. Now that Gaza has lost all power, he worries it is only a matter of time before he will lose all contact with the staff there. He says they are surviving hour to hour, not knowing what will befall them tomorrow, with “the smell of bombs and death” all around them.
Thousands of families in Gaza have taken refuge from the bombardment at United Nations school compounds; more than 600,000 Gazans have been displaced so far. More than two-thirds of the displaced have taken refuge at U.N. schools. The Israeli air raids and missile and artillery attacks have been relentless since Hamas killed more than 1,400 Israelis during its incursion. Entire neighborhoods in Gaza have been demolished by the air campaign. The Gaza Health Ministry said on Oct. 16 that 2,750 people have been killed in the territory.
“If you want to seek peace, you should promote justice. And what we’re doing through Caritas Jerusalem is promoting justice, trying to find peace, while planting hope.”
In Geneva, the UNICEF spokesperson James Elder urged a halt to the violence. “UNICEF is calling for an immediate cease fire as 1.1 million people—nearly half of them children—have been warned to move out of the way ahead of what is expected to be a ground assault on one of the most densely populated places on the planet, but with nowhere safe for civilians to go,” he said on Oct. 13.
“Hundreds and hundreds of children have been killed and injured,” Mr. Elder said. “The killing of children must stop.
“The images and stories are clear,” he said. “Children with horrendous burns, mortar wounds, and lost limbs. And hospitals are utterly overwhelmed to treat them. Yet the numbers keep rising.”
Mr. Elder also urged that “Israeli children being held hostage in Gaza must be safely and immediately reunited with their families and loved ones.”
“The humanitarian situation has reached lethal lows, and yet all reports point to further attacks. Compassion—and international law—must prevail.”
Mr. Asfar has been in contact with members of Gaza’s tiny Christian community. Perhaps 1,000 Christians live in Gaza, among them 300 Latin Rite Catholics. Since the I.D.F. onslaught began in the wake of the Hamas incursion, 200 people have taken refuge on the grounds of Holy Family Church, the only Latin Rite parish in Gaza, and another 100 are inside the compound of Gaza’s Greek Orthodox Church, St. Porphyrius. He believes that the churches have thrown open their doors to all comers seeking safety from the I.D.F. bombing.
On Oct. 13 the I.D.F. began dropping thousands of flyers over northern Gaza and leaving voice messages directing Gazans to flee south, ahead of a likely I.D.F. ground invasion.
Now Mr. Asfar is struggling to figure out how to support these displaced Gazans. For now, Caritas has been able to rely on materials that had been in storage, but because of the complete blockade of the strip, he cannot say when Caritas will be able to get more resources in.
The I.D.F. has cut off water and electricity and is not allowing food, fuel, medical or other supplies into Gaza. The Netanyahu government has demanded that before it will allow aid in, Hamas must release the 100 or more hostages that militants seized during their attack on Oct. 7, when they stormed Israeli communities near the border and a music festival, killing and kidnapping people.
As bad as they are now, conditions in Gaza are likely to get much worse soon. On Oct. 13 the I.D.F. began dropping thousands of flyers over northern Gaza and leaving voice messages directing Gazans to flee south, ahead of a likely I.D.F. ground invasion.
Mr. Asfar believes that as a Christian he has a special role to play in the Holy Land, even as conditions grow more difficult for the small Christian community there.
“I stay in Jerusalem because I love Jerusalem, because I love witnessing Jesus Christ in the Holy Land. This is where it started. And this is an honor badge on my chest, being a local Catholic Christian in the Holy Land,” he says. “This honor comes with big suffering...the holding of a big cross on our shoulders as Christians over here.”
Even as many other Christians seek to emigrate from the West Bank and Israel, he remains determined to stay and help keep the Christian presence alive, to find work for other Christians who remain and schooling for their children, and “most importantly, try to give them a dignified place to live.”
“This situation is terrible for us,” he says. “I am against violence against any people…. The situation should be solved peacefully. There should be a just solution for both parties.
“There is enough space for everybody to live in this country,” he adds, a hopeful note under the circumstances. He explains: “As a faithful Christian, depending on our Lord and the Holy Spirit, we’ll always have hope. I’m always optimistic, whatever the situation.
“If you want to seek peace, you should promote justice. And what we’re doing through Caritas Jerusalem is promoting justice, trying to find peace, while planting hope.”
Mr. Asfar calls on U.S. Catholics “to pressure the politicians and leaders to immediately put an end to this bloody round of violence and put pressure on the leaders over here, the two conflicting parties to sit and discuss long-lasting resolution for this conflict.”
Otherwise, he says, it is very likely that this same scenario of violence and recrimination will simply repeat itself.
Oct. 16: Updated with latest numbers of the dead and displaced in Gaza, Israel and West Bank.
