In Depth:  Gaza

Luke Randall

UK Christians have prayed continuously for 700 hours about the crisis in the Middle East, as part of a prayer session organised by charities Tearfund and 24-7 Prayer, as conflicts continue in the region.

Tearfund asked people to pray for the situation as conflicts continue in Gaza and Lebanon, and tensions increase between Israel and Iran.

Iain Taylor

Thirty out of the estimated 1,000 Christians still left in Gaza have been killed, according to local church sources.

And as Gaza’s Christian population continues to shrink, down from about 3,500 before the war began, commentators fear that one of the oldest Christian communities in the world may be literally dying out.

Iain Taylor

‘Jesus is in the rubble’ according to a Middle Eastern pastor, as Gaza continues to face intense Israeli military action and fears of war spreading accelerate.

Rhiannon de Laune (see photo), from Christian charity Embrace the Middle East, was quoting a Bethlehem pastor, Munther Isaac.

Iain Taylor

The appalling death and destruction inflicted by both sides during the current Israel/Hamas conflict in the Middle East has horrified the world. But even amidst the carnage and destruction so visible on our TV screens day after day, churches and Christian organisations are bringing help and hope to the region, even though they too have also become intended or accidental targets of the violence.

Christian TV station SAT-7, which broadcasts across the Middle East, reports that shelling caused severe damage to a new cancer ward at the Anglican Church-funded Al Ahli hospital in Gaza. An explosion in its courtyard, thought to have been caused by a misfired Gazan missile, killed almost 500 people sheltering there. The hospital continues to operate as best it can, however, and has been accepting patients from other besieged hospitals that have had to stop working.