As Gaza’s fragile ceasefire hangs by a thread, the territory’s 1,000 Christians - many of whom have spent two years sheltering in bombed churches - must decide whether to flee to safety or stay in the land where Christianity was born.

A man named Elias al-Jalda in Gaza City is grappling with a question that isn’t making headlines: Will his community survive?

That calculation has become starker in recent days, and the hope of reconstruction feels precarious as ever. For Gaza’s approximately 1,000 Christians - the choice has become urgent: flee now while there’s a window, or stay.

[According to our partner Issa in the West Bank, 500 of those Christians have left Gaza and are now in Egypt.]

The statistics are staggering. Over 80 per cent of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN. But statistics don’t capture what Elias described; the peculiar intimacy of the crisis or how families who barely knew each other before the war have “become closer, getting to know each other better than ever” through shared suffering in church shelters.

Yet Elias and others like him refuse to despair. “I still believe that there is hope and the possibility of us living in this country and that life will return to normal,” he said. “I am committed to remaining, living on the land on which I was born, and on the land of Jesus Christ. The beginnings of Christianity were here in this land. Therefore, I believe that Christians must remain in the region.”

As the ceasefire struggles, families like Elias’s are making decisions that will shape Gaza for generations. Each departure means fewer voices in church shelters, sharing the hope of the good news that has sustained them through impossible circumstances -- and fewer children hearing stories that connect them to 2,000 years of continuous presence.

Please pray for the Christians that choose to remain in Gaza -- for their protection, provision, and perseverance in these extremely difficult times.

Source: Premiere Christianity “Gaza’s Christians are facing an impossible choice” by Martin Thomas (edited for space)