Isabelle Hayslip holds a Master of International and Comparative Law from Åbo Akademi University, Finland. Her research focuses on the law of self-determination and human rights in Palestine.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, known as the birthplace of Jesus, Orthodox Christian Palestinians paraded through Manger Square on Jan. 7, celebrating Christmas Day for the first time since Israel's Gaza genocide began. In the square stands a tall Christmas tree, lit at the beginning of the Advent season in a ceremony held for the first time in two years. This community—rarely acknowledged in the United States and Europe—aims to keep hope and happiness alive amid ongoing Israeli attacks as billions of people around the world celebrate the Advent season.
In early December, thousands of Palestinians traveled to Bethlehem from across the Occupied West Bank and Israel, gathering to watch the ceremony outside the Church of the Nativity. "As Bethlehem lights its Christmas tree, the deep anguish endured by our people in Gaza does not leave our hearts," stated Maher Canawati, the city's mayor. "The wound of Gaza is our wound, the people of Gaza are our people and the light of Christmas has no meaning unless it first touches the hearts of the afflicted, and the oppressed all over Palestine."
As expressed by Dr. Yousef Kamal AlKhouri, a Palestinian Christian theologian originally from Gaza, "We are lighting up the trees this year in Bethlehem, not [as] a way of celebration, but [as a]…manifestation of our sumud and resilience."
For the first time in two years, children decorated the Holy Family Church in Gaza City. "We are trying to be happy from inside," said Hilda Ayad, a young girl reflecting on her experience during the war and sheltering in the Catholic church. Israel has targeted the church grounds multiple times, shooting civilians there in December 2023 and bombing it directly in July 2025. "We lost everything in the war. We lost our homes, we lost some of our family. It was very…bad days we live[d] here, inside the church," she said.
The Holy Family Church's Head of Operations, George Antone, said the church is trying to lift people out of despair through celebration, holding mass, reenacting the birth of Christ and giving simple gifts to the children.
This community—rarely acknowledged in the United States and Europe—aims to keep hope and happiness alive amid ongoing Israeli attacks as billions of people around the world celebrate the Advent season.
- Isabelle Hayslip
Speaking on the Foundation for Middle East Peace's podcast Occupied Thoughts, Dr. AlKhouri, a member of the Palestinian Christian ecumenical movement Kairos Palestine, called on the global Christian community and people of good conscience to take nonviolent action in support of Palestinian liberation and to amplify the reality of Palestinian life under Israeli occupation.
Part of an Orthodox Christian family native to Gaza for centuries, Dr. AlKhouri places the current Advent season against the backdrop of Christianity's history in Palestine: "Gaza has been, over the past 5,000 years, a melting pot of people from different cultures, different languages, civilizations,…religions. Judaism and Christianity were always part of that history. It's part of the Palestinian heritage."
Existing since the 1st century CE, Gaza's Christian community is one of the oldest in the world. "One of the earliest stories told about Gaza's Christian community goes back to the Holy Family, when Jesus and the Holy Family fled to Egypt—like many Palestinians today—because the empire was brutalizing the children of Bethlehem. To the present day there is a tree in Gaza…called the Good Tree…in reference to its history as the tree where the Holy Family rested in its shadow."
A major center of Christianity for centuries, its importance in Gaza continued into the Muslim period. Although a small minority for the past millennium, the Christian community has remained a vital presence in economic and cultural development. Today, Gaza's churches continue to serve the local community, Dr. AlKhouri explains, "providing support to the Palestinian Christians and Muslims alike in Gaza City," with many families sheltering in the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius and the Catholic Holy Family Church. The Church of Saint Porphyrius has also been a target of Israeli attacks, including an October 2023 airstrike that killed 17 people.
Since October 2023, the Christian population of Gaza has declined by more than 50%, from around 1,100 to roughly 500 people, as a result of Israeli attacks on Christian sites and its efforts to ethnically cleanse the Christian population. Reflecting upon the experience of Gaza's Christians as indigenous to the region and the nature of Israel's crimes against them, Dr. AlKhouri terms this intentional destruction of Gaza's Christian presence "ecclesiocide."
Since October 2023, the Christian population of Gaza has declined by more than 50%, from around 1,100 to roughly 500 people
- Isabelle Hayslip
The destruction of Palestine's Christian presence is not confined to Gaza. In the West Bank, the Israeli occupation continues its entrenchment through the expansion of illegal settlements, settler violence like that directed against the Christian village of Taybeh, land confiscation and denial of free movement. All threaten the survival of centuries-old Christian communities.
In November 2025, the Palestinian Christian Ecumenical Initiative issued the Kairos Palestine II Document, exposing this reality to challenge Israel's dominant global narrative:
"We live now in a time of genocide, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement unfolding before the eyes of the world. This moment demands from us a new stand, one unlike any before it. It is both a decisive moment and a moment of truth."
"Kairos" is an ancient Greek word defined as the perfect timing, a moment of truth or a crucial moment in history. As Dr. AlKhouri explains, Kairos Palestine II is a turning point, speaking to the Palestinian experience of living under the shadow of Israeli genocide and settler colonialism attempting to erase the existence and memory of Palestinian Christians from the land: "[We] are calling to the Christian community and the Christian Church, but also globally, to move for the liberation of the Palestinian people and hold accountable the war criminals."
The Kairos Palestine II Document also extends accountability to those claiming to support the universal principles of the international community: "While the peoples of the world have stood in solidarity with us, the genocidal war has laid bare the hypocrisy of the Western world, its hollow values and the civilization it boasts, claiming commitment to human rights and international law. In truth, the Western world has sacrificed us, revealing racism and double standards toward our people."
That Western hypocrisy is particularly apparent during Christmas, a holiday celebrating the birth of a man whose teachings of kindness, love and forgiveness are revered by billions around the world. Meanwhile, in Gaza, children are freezing to death—despite their parents' desperate efforts to keep them warm—in makeshift shelters flooding with rain and sewage.
In the past two years, at least 70,000 people of Jesus's homeland, including 20,000 children, have been killed in an Israeli-engineered genocide materially and politically facilitated by the United States. Now under a fragile ceasefire, Palestinians continue to endure unimaginable suffering. Israel has violated the ceasefire hundreds of times since it came into effect on Oct. 10, continuing to bomb Gaza, shoot civilians, demolish property and withhold humanitarian aid amid heavy storms and freezing conditions.
For Christian Palestinians, this Advent season mirrors the first Christmas 2,000 years ago, when a baby was born amid hardship and occupation on the edge of the Roman Empire. In this story, Dr. AlKhouri sees hope for the future. "We have seen empires come and go…and now we read about them in the books of history. But we remain."
"The occupation can take our land, can take our lives, but cannot take our hope for liberation. [C]elebrating Christmas…is a sign of hope, that it's darkness, but one day a light will shine."
