Every night without fail, a cell phone rings at the Holy Family Church in Gaza and a parish priest answers. The voice at the bottom of the line is that of Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church and spiritual leader of a global flock of 1.4 billion people.
For more than a year, the pope has called nightly at the church to comfort hundreds of Palestinian Christians sheltering there as fighting rages in the streets outside and Israeli warplanes pound much of the city around them into rubble.
For those living in difficult conditions in the church compound and now preparing for their second Christmas surrounded by war, regular contact with the Pope assures them that they have not been forgotten.
“It calms our fears and makes us feel safe,” said Attallah Tarazi, a retired surgeon. “The Pope gives us his blessings and prays with us if the relationship is good.”
Pope Francis during one of his daily video calls with the church in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Ghj8gRGfOw
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The entire Christian community in Gaza – up to 1,000 people – sought refuge in October 2023 in the compound of the Catholic Holy Family Church and the nearby Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyry, the only two Christian houses of worship in the territory.
The Pope said of the Gaza conflict in his annual Christmas greetings on Saturday: “Yesterday the children were bombed. This is cruelty; this is not war.” He told CBS Sixty minutes program in May: “I speak every night at seven o'clock in the parish of Gaza . . . They tell me what happens there. It is very difficult, very difficult. . . Sometimes they are hungry and tell me things. There is a lot of suffering.”
On December 22, the leader of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, led a Christmas Mass at the Church of the Holy Family in a rare visit outside of permission by Israeli authorities to the besieged strip.
Despite the war outside, priests in cassocks regularly celebrate mass in Gaza's two churches under domes painted with biblical scenes. Some classes have also begun in church compounds for children missing their second year of school following the war sparked by Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, in which the Palestinian militant group killed around 1,200 people and seized around 250 hostages.
More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed by the vicious offensive that Israel then launched into the Gaza Strip.
The number of Christians sheltering in churches has fallen this year because many managed to leave through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, which was open until it was captured by Israel on May 6.
That left about 650 people in the two churches, said George Akroush, an official at the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem. Families sleep on mattresses and survive on canned food and lentils, without meat, fresh fruit or vegetables. Aid agencies send supplies, while several humanitarian convoys have been organized by the patriarchate.
“We are trying to send warm things because it is very cold in Gaza,” Akroush said. “We want to give them boots and baby clothes and thermals. There is also a huge shortage of mattresses, but the Israelis refuse to let them in, even though most people sleep on the floor.
An Israeli official said Tuesday that an aid truck arrived ahead of the cardinal's visit. “This shipment included mattresses, warm clothing and additional winterization items, as well as other types of assistance selected by the mission,” they said.
Akroush said the patriarchate had tried to send supplies to between 6,000 and 7,000 people in each of its convoys so that aid could also reach Muslim neighbors. “We make no distinction between Christians and Muslims,” he said. “This is the mission of the church.”
Tarazi refused to leave Gaza to join his grown children in Australia: he wanted to see the outcome of the war and still held out hope that his property in the strip could be passed on to his descendants. But he never expected to spend another Christmas in church.
“I didn't think we'd be here this long, sleeping to the sound of bombing every night,” he said. “Many shells fell near the church.”
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Built in the 1960s to accommodate Christians among Palestinian refugees forced to flee to Gaza when Israel was founded in 1948, the Catholic church was named after the Holy Family's passage through the territory during their biblical flight to Egypt.
Its complex includes a monastery, a school and several other buildings, one of which housed 73 disabled people. Rocket attacks in December 2023 destroyed that building and its residents were moved to another in the compound, where nuns still care for them.
Large areas of Gaza City have been reduced to rubble-strewn wastelands by Israeli bombardment, and most residents have fled the south on Israeli orders.
The churches' status as houses of worship and the Pope's interest in the welfare of stranded Christians seem to have provided some protection. But sniper fire, shells and rockets still hit both compounds and people were killed in the first months of the war.
In December 2023, an elderly woman and her daughter were shot dead by sniper fire while walking inside the Holy Family compound. The Latin Patriarchate accused Israeli troops of carrying out the killings, but the Israeli military denied involvement.
Two months ago, an Israeli airstrike destroyed a building housing families in the Saint Porphyrius compound, killing 17 people. Israel promised to investigate, but no results have been announced.
Attallah al-Amash, an accountant, lost his seven-month-old daughter, Joelle, and his wife's parents in that attack. He then transferred his wife and three-year-old son, Ibrahim, to the Catholic Church.
“I feel like everything is negative and there's a heavy feeling from the moment we get up until we go to sleep,” Amash said. “We wait for (the war) to end, but it doesn't.”
His young son plays with other children in the churchyard, but Amash said he and his wife “have nothing to think about and nothing to do, we just sit there.”
The building in Gaza City where the family lived was destroyed in July. Since then they have rarely left the compound. Amash hopes for a future outside the enclave. “If I find a job abroad, I will go,” he said. “But now we have to wait for the war to end.”
Samer Tarazi, sheltered in Saint Porphyrius, was preparing to leave for Australia when the Rafah crossing was closed. His wife and three children had already traveled, so now the family is separated.
A member of the large Christian Tarazi clan in Gaza, and a cousin of Attallah Tarazi, he leaves Saint Porphyry to film for his media services company when he deems it safe.
“There is total destruction outside,” he said. “There is not a single undamaged building or window. I would say 80 percent of the buildings are now unlivable.”
He also wants to leave Gaza after the war because “Christians are becoming an even smaller minority.”
But Arkoush, of the Latin Patriarchate, said it was too early to write the future of the Christian community in Gaza. He expects another 150 people to leave after the war, but said many chose to stay when offered the chance to go when the crossing was open.
They said: 'This is the land of our ancestors and we are not a foreign community.' I expect the numbers to drop, but the Christian presence to end – I don't think so.”
Additional reporting by Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv. Cartography by Aditi Bhandari
