‘Many have had their eyes opened for the first time’ to Palestine’s occupation, Bethlehem’s Rev. Munther Isaac tells Arab News

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Updated 25 December 2024
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‘Many have had their eyes opened for the first time’ to Palestine’s occupation, Bethlehem’s Rev. Munther Isaac tells Arab News

‘Many have had their eyes opened for the first time’ to Palestine’s occupation, Bethlehem’s Rev. Munther Isaac tells Arab News
  • Pastor shares his enduring faith in Palestinian resilience as a second subdued Christmas is marked amid the Gaza conflict
  • Isaac says he would like to show Trump’s pick for US ambassador to Israel Huckabee the realities of West Bank occupation

BETHELHEM: Amid the ongoing suffering in Gaza, Rev. Munther Isaac, the Palestinian pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, told Arab News that his enduring source of hope is his “faith in God and the resilience of our Palestinian people.”

Isaac, who last Christmas drew global attention after his church displayed a nativity featuring the baby Jesus draped in a keffiyeh amid a heap of rubble, representing the war in Gaza, said he had been taken aback by the worldwide response to his imagery.

“It has been a year since we installed Christ in the rubble in our church here in Bethlehem, and honestly I am shocked and horrified to my core that this war is still going on and that all our efforts, demonstrations around the world, the cries and the images of people, children killed didn’t stop this war,” he said.

Israel mounted a devastating military operation in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which killed some 1,200 people, most of them Israeli civilians, and saw around 250 taken hostage, including scores of foreign nationals.

The bombardment of Gaza and strangulation of aid flows into the embattled territory has resulted in more than 43,000 deaths, some 70 percent of the women and children, according to health ministry officials, leading to accusations of genocide.




Worshippers walk outside after Christmas Eve mass at the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Family in the Zaytoun neighbourhood of Gaza City on December 24, 2024. (AFP)

Isaac said the widespread revulsion inspired by the conflict had created a worldwide movement in support of the Palestinian cause, with several churches around the globe copying the imagery of Jesus in the rubble to show their support.

“I still receive these days, a year on, images of churches around the world that have created something similar, whether in their churches or church leaders carrying signs with the image of Jesus in the rubble or using that metaphor that if Jesus was born today he would be found in the rubble,” he said.

The Palestinian pastor said he has been “overwhelmed” by that response and the media attention.

“I am grateful that this has enabled us to speak about the suffering of our people, that it enabled us to try as much as we can to humanize our message that this is about children, about real people,” he said.

“We are seeing people united together in churches and sometimes in synagogues with the aim of convincing the warlords, which they called them, to stop this war.”

But the native of the Bethlehem district town of Beit Sahour, where the biblical story of the Shepherds watching their flock by night occurred, called on supporters and those who can show solidarity with Palestinians to visit the occupied territories.

Isaac, who is also the academic dean at the Bethlehem Bible College, oversaw an international conference in May titled “Christ at the Checkpoint,” which drew hundreds of attendees from across the globe.

“It was great to see people come from around the world to express their support and solidarity, to stay in our hotels and cater to our restaurants and shops,” said Isaac.




Debris and rubble litter the ground a day after the Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church, the oldest church still in use in Gaza, was damaged in a strike on Gaza City on October 20, 2023. (AFP/File)

Bethlehem’s tourism industry has been badly hit by the dramatic fall in visitor numbers since the outbreak of war in Gaza in October 2023. Prior to the conflict, well over a million pilgrims and tourists would visit the birthplace of Jesus every year.

Isaac has become a global voice for Christians and Palestinians, attending meetings with national security officials at the White House, participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London, and recently speaking in a South Africa mosque.

He was damning in his assessment of the US President-elect Donald Trump’s new cabinet picks, including the new US ambassador to Israel, Michael Huckabee, who has said he does not believe there is an Israeli occupation.

“When you look at what they are saying, that there is no occupation, that it is Judea and Samaria (rather than the West Bank), it clearly shows their imagined reality of Palestine from their biblical understanding, Trump’s (understanding), (removed from) any reality on the ground, whether it is international law or the reality we are living in,” said Isaac.

“When he says there is no occupation, I want to take him with me when we take our kids to school every day, and we pass by a checkpoint with (Israeli) soldiers pointing their guns at us.”

Isaac said the most dangerous thing about the holders of this ideology is that they “have a totally different sphere or reality to them. It is the imagined biblical times. God has given the land to Israel, and it does not matter what international law says.

“It does not matter that Palestinians have lived on this land for generations. To them, the only reality that matters is the way they understand the Bible.

“I find it strange that these are the very same people that preach to the world about the separation of state and religion, yet here they are imposing their own religious beliefs on me and our people, and they want all of us in the Middle East to accept not only their religion but to accept the way they interrupt the Bible, which is something not all Christians agree on.

“And they want to impose it on Arabs, on Palestinians, even on Palestinian Christians with a total disregard for reality or international law.”




A woman lights a candle inside the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. (AFP/File)

However, Isaac said he is seeing changes, or what he called “cracks in the wall,” in how Christians are responding. “I receive lots of messages and I begin to see this change, and the crimes that Israel is committing are so hard to ignore,” he said.

In his Christmas sermon last year, Isaac said the conflict in Gaza had divided the world. Now he says Gaza “has created a division also among Christians in how they see the world.”

“Some still believe and continue with the narrative in the West that Israel is defending itself and that this is a legitimate war or the Christian Zionist brand that says that this is Israel’s land to begin with, while others who are more concerned about justice and human rights are beginning to speak out,” he said.

“Many have had their eyes opened for the first time. Let us not forget that many in the West do not even realize Palestinian Christians exist. So, when they see and hear from pastors that even the church in Gaza was attacked and that Christians in Gaza are killed, women were shot dead in the church yard, it challenges their perspectives that this change is not enough to stop the war.”

Isaac says there are many parallels between the Christmas story and what Palestinians are living through today.

“Jesus was born under occupation, became a refugee, and survived the massacre of children,” he said. “All these are stories in the gospel. When we look at Jesus, we find hope. When we look at God, who is good and just, we have hope.

“That is why, this Christmas season, our hope comes from our faith. We will continue to pray.”




“I am shocked and horrified to my core that this war is still going on,” said Rev. Munther Isaac. (Supplied)

Like last year, Bethlehem’s festive decorations will again be more muted in a sign of respect to those killed and suffering in Gaza. “Yes, we will not light Christmas trees and Santas,” said Isaac. “That enables us to talk about the true meaning of Christmas.”

The heads of the various churches of Jerusalem have also called on church leaders to share messages of hope during this year’s Christmas celebrations. “Our faith is being tested and we need to keep the faith,” said Isaac.

“This is the place that Christianity started, there has been an ongoing Christian presence in Bethlehem in Jerusalem and in Nazareth for 2,000 years, and I believe there will be Christian presence after this.

“As long as we are committed to keep the witness from the place where it all started, I think we can survive this period.”


Bodies of migrants recovered in two locations in Libya, security and Red Crescent say

Bodies of migrants recovered in two locations in Libya, security and Red Crescent say
Updated 07 February 2025
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Bodies of migrants recovered in two locations in Libya, security and Red Crescent say

Bodies of migrants recovered in two locations in Libya, security and Red Crescent say
  • 19 bodies — believed to be related to smuggling activites — were discovered in a mass grave in a farm some 441 km from Benghazi, say police
  • Libya's Red Crescent said the bodies of 10 other migrants were recovered after their boat sank off Dila port in the city of Zawiya, near Tripoli

BENGHAZI, Libya: At least 29 bodies of migrants have been recovered in two locations in the southeast and west of Libya, a security directorate and the Libyan Red Crescent said on Thursday.
The Alwahat district Security Directorate said in a statement that 19 bodies were discovered in a mass grave in a farm in Jikharra area, some 441 km from Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, and said the deaths were related to smuggling activites.
The directorate posted on Facebook pictures showing police officers and Jalu Red Crescent volunteers placing the bodies in black plastic bags.
Separately, the Libyan Red Crescent said on Facebook late Thursday evening that its volunteers recovered the bodies of 10 migrants earlier in the day after their boat sank off Dila port in the city of Zawiya, some 40 km from Tripoli, the capital.
The Red Crescent posted pictures showing volunteers on the dockside placing bodies in white plastic bags, while one volunteer put numbers on one of the bags.
"In the presence of the Public Prosecution Office in Jalu, the directorate was able to recover 19 bodies resulting from smuggling and illegal migration activities in Jikharra area, belonging to a known smuggling network," the directorate said.
It said the bodies were found in a total of three graves on the farm, with one grave holding one body, a second grave holding four bodies, and the remaining 14 bodies found in the third grave.
"The bodies were all referred to a forensic doctor to conduct the necessary tests," the directorate said.
Libya has turned into a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe across the Mediterranean.
At the end of January, Alwahat Criminal Investigation Department said it had freed 263 migrants from different Sub-Saharan nationalities, saying they were "being held by a smuggling gang in extremely poor human and health conditions."


Syria’s ‘Caesar’ whistleblower unveils identity

Syria’s ‘Caesar’ whistleblower unveils identity
Updated 07 February 2025
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Syria’s ‘Caesar’ whistleblower unveils identity

Syria’s ‘Caesar’ whistleblower unveils identity
  • First Lt. Farid Al-Madhan was the former head of the forensic evidence department at the military police in Damascus

BEIRUT: A Syrian whistleblower, who smuggled tens of thousands of pictures depicting torture under Bashar Assad, on Thursday revealed his identity for the first time, two months after the longtime ruler was toppled.
“I am First Lt. Farid Al-Madhan, the (former) head of the forensic evidence department at the military police in Damascus, known as Caesar,” he said in a televised interview with Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera.
Identified at the time only as a Syrian military photographer under the pseudonym Caesar, he had fled the country in 2013, taking with him some 55,000 graphic images taken between 2011 and 2013.
Describing himself during the interview as a “son of a free Syria,” he said he was from the city of Daraa, “the cradle of the Syrian revolution.”
Following the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests, he said he was tasked with “taking pictures of victims of detention.”
These included “old men, women and children, who were detained at security checkpoints in Damascus, and from protest squares that called for freedom and dignity,” said Madhan, who added that he currently resides in France.
“They were detained, tortured and killed in bloody, systematic ways and their bodies were transferred to military morgues to be photographed and taken to mass graves,” he continued.
He said he postponed his defection from the government forces and fleeing the country in order to be able to “collect the largest number of pictures documenting and incriminating the Syrian regime apparatuses of committing crimes against humanity.”
He said the pictures were smuggled in a flash drive that he sometimes hid in his socks or a bundle of bread to escape government security checkpoints or those of the opposition.
The photos, authenticated by experts, show corpses tortured and starved to death in Syrian prisons.
Some people had their eyes gouged out. The photos showed emaciated bodies, people with wounds on the back or stomach, and also a picture of hundreds of corpses in a shed surrounded by plastic bags used for burials.
Assad’s government said only that the pictures were “political.”
But Caesar testified to a US Congress committee and his photographs inspired a 2020 US law which imposed economic sanctions on Syria and judicial proceedings in Europe against Assad’s entourage.
Germany, the Netherlands and France have since 2022 convicted several top officials from the Syrian intelligence service and militias.


Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over

Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over
Updated 07 February 2025
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Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over

Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over
  • No American troops would be needed on the ground, the US president wrote his Truth Social web platform
  • Israel’s defense chief suggests Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others opposed to military operations in Gaza should take in the Palestinians
  • Trump’s top diplomat said that people would have to live elsewhere while Gaza was being rebuilt

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Thursday Israel would hand over Gaza to the United States after fighting was over and the enclave’s population was already resettled elsewhere, which he said meant no US troops would be needed on the ground.
A day after worldwide condemnation of Trump’s announcement that he aimed to take over and develop the Gaza Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” Israel ordered its army to prepare to allow the “voluntary departure” of Gaza Palestinians.
Trump, who had previously declined to rule out deploying US troops to the small coastal territory, clarified his idea in comments on his Truth Social web platform.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” he said. Palestinians “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.” He added: “No soldiers by the US would be needed!“
Earlier, amid a tide of support in Israel for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Trump’s “remarkable” proposal, Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had ordered the army to prepare a plan to allow Gaza residents who wished to leave to exit the enclave voluntarily.
“I welcome President Trump’s bold plan. Gaza residents should be allowed the freedom to leave and emigrate, as is the norm around the world,” Katz said on X.
He said his plan would include exit options via land crossings, as well as special arrangements for departure by sea and air.
Trump, a real-estate-developer-turned-politician, sparked anger around the Middle East with his unexpected announcement on Tuesday, just as Israel and Hamas were expected to begin talks in Doha on the second stage of a ceasefire deal for Gaza, intended to open the way for a full withdrawal of Israeli forces, a further release of hostages and an end to a nearly 16-month-old war.

Regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia rebuffed the proposal outright and Jordan’s King Abdullah, who will meet Trump at the White House next week, said on Wednesday he rejected any attempts to annex land and displace Palestinians.
Egypt also weighed in, saying it would not be part of any proposal to displace Palestinians from neighboring Gaza, where residents reacted with fury to the suggestion.
“We will not sell our land for you, real estate developer. We are hungry, homeless, and desperate but we are not collaborators,” said Abdel Ghani, a father of four living with his family in the ruins of their Gaza City home. “If (Trump) wants to help, let him come and rebuild for us here.”
It was unclear whether Trump would go ahead with his proposal or, in keeping with his self-image as a shrewd dealmaker, has simply laid out an extreme position as a bargaining tactic. His first term in 2017-21 was replete with what critics said were over-the-top foreign policy pronouncements, many of which were never implemented.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Thursday that people would have to live elsewhere while Gaza was rebuilt. He did not say whether they would be able to return under Trump’s plan to develop the enclave, home to more than 2 million Palestinians.
Axios reported Rubio planned to visit the Middle East in mid-February with an itinerary that includes Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Displacement
What effect Trump’s shock proposal may have on the ceasefire talks remains unclear. Only 13 of a group of 33 Israeli hostages due for release in the first phase have so far been returned, with three more due to come out on Saturday. Five Thai hostages have also been released.
Hamas official Basem Naim accused Israel’s defense minister of trying to cover up “for a state that has failed to achieve any of its objectives in the war on Gaza,” and said Palestinians are too attached to their land to ever leave.
Displacement of Palestinians has been one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East for decades. Forced or coerced displacement of a population under military occupation is a war crime, banned under the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

Details of how any such plan might work have been vague. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said different thinking was needed on Gaza’s future but that any departures would have to be voluntary and states would have to be willing to take them.
“We don’t have details yet, but we can talk about principles,” Saar told a press conference with his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani. “Everything must be based on the free will of (the) individual and, on the other hand, of a will of a state that is ready to absorb,” he said.
A number of far-right Israeli politicians have openly called for Palestinians to be moved from Gaza and there was strong support for Trump’s push among both security hawks and the Jewish settler movement, which wants to reclaim land in Gaza used for Jewish settlements until 2005.
Giora Eiland, an Israeli former general who attracted wide attention in an earlier stage of the war with his “Generals’ Plan” for a forced displacement of people from northern Gaza, said Trump’s plan was logical and aid should not be allowed to reach displaced people returning to northern Gaza.
Israel’s military campaign has killed tens of thousands of people since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, cross-border attack on Israel touched off the war, and has forced Palestinians to repeatedly move around within Gaza in search of safety.
But many say they will never leave the enclave because they fear permanent displacement, like the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands were dispossessed from homes in the war at the birth of the state of Israel in 1948.
Katz said countries that have opposed Israel’s military operations in Gaza should take in the Palestinians.
“Countries like Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have levelled accusations and false claims against Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow any Gaza resident to enter their territories,” he said.


Morocco foils 78,685 migrant attempts to reach Europe in 2024

Morocco foils 78,685 migrant attempts to reach Europe in 2024
Updated 06 February 2025
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Morocco foils 78,685 migrant attempts to reach Europe in 2024

Morocco foils 78,685 migrant attempts to reach Europe in 2024

RABAT: Morocco stopped 78,685 migrants from illegally crossing into EU territory in 2024, up 4.6 percent from a year earlier, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

The figures highlight “growing migratory pressure in an unstable regional environment,” the ministry said in response to questions.

Among the migrants, 58 percent were from West Africa, 12 percent from North Africa where Morocco is located, and 9 percent from East and Central Africa, it said.

Years of armed conflict across Africa’s Sahel region, unemployment, and the impact of climate change on farming communities are among the reasons driving migrants toward Europe.

Morocco and neighboring EU member Spain have strengthened cooperation against undocumented migration since they patched a separate diplomatic feud in 2022.

The North African country has for long been a major launch pad for African migrants aiming to reach Europe through the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, or by jumping the fence surrounding the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in northern Morocco.

Last year, there were 14 group attempts to cross into Ceuta and Melilla, compared with six in 2023, the ministry said.

Moroccan authorities rescued 18,645 would-be migrants from unseaworthy boats in 2024, up 10.8 percent from 2023, it said.

Last month as many as 50 migrants may have drowned in the latest deadly wreck involving people trying to make the Atlantic crossing from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands, a migrant rights group said.


West Bank healthcare ‘in a state of perpetual emergency’: MSF

West Bank healthcare ‘in a state of perpetual emergency’: MSF
Updated 06 February 2025
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West Bank healthcare ‘in a state of perpetual emergency’: MSF

West Bank healthcare ‘in a state of perpetual emergency’: MSF
  • Most clinics and hospitals are running at significantly reduced levels, medical charity says

GENEVA: The healthcare system in the occupied West Bank has been in “a state of perpetual emergency” since October 2023, the Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, group said in a new report published on Thursday.

“A dramatic escalation in violence, marked by prolonged Israeli military incursions and stricter movement restrictions ... have severely hindered access to essential services, particularly health care, exacerbating already dire living conditions for many Palestinians,” it said.

Violence in the region soared after the attack on Israel in October 2023, which triggered a massive retaliation by Israel that has leveled much of Gaza.

“Since Oct. 7, 2023, the West Bank has seen a dramatic escalation in violence, marked by prolonged Israeli military incursions and stricter movement restrictions,” it said.

The report examined “the attacks and the obstructions of healthcare in a context of what has been described by the ICJ (International Criminal Court) as segregation and apartheid.”

It revealed “a pattern of systematic interference by Israeli forces and settlers in emergency health care delivery.”

The Palestinian Health Ministry says Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 884 Palestinians, including many militants, in the West Bank since the Gaza war began on Oct. 7, 2023.

Over the same period, at least 32 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids in the territory, official Israeli figures show.

Preventing Palestinians from accessing healtcare was “part of a wider system of collective punishment imposed by Israel, under the guise of its crackdown on armed Palestinian men,” MSF said.

“The already-strained Palestinian healthcare system in the West Bank has been further weakened since October 2023 and is facing significant budget constraints,” it said.

Nearly half the essential medications are out of stock, and health workers have not been paid in a year, the report said, adding that “most clinics and hospitals are running at significantly reduced levels.”

“Access to health care is severely impeded by a sprawling system of checkpoints and roadblocks that obstruct ambulance movements, compounded by the escalation of violent military raids involving the use of disproportionate tactics.”

This is compounded by “frequent attacks on medical personnel and facilities ... Hospitals and healthcare structures are often encircled by military forces, with troops sometimes occupying the buildings themselves, compounding the risks to both patients and staff.”

Violence from settlers often exacerbates these dire conditions, it said.

MSF called on Israel to stop its “disproportionate use of force” in the West Bank, including on medical facilities and against medical personnel.

It called for independent probes into past such attacks, for Israel to facilitate medical access to those in need, and to allow the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA to be allowed to continue its work.

Israeli military offensives in two West Bank refugee camps have displaced nearly 5,500 Palestinian families since December, local and UN officials said this week, amid escalating violence in the occupied territory.

Jonathan Fowler, spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said an estimated 2,450 to 3,000 families have been displaced from the Tulkarem refugee camp.

Faisal Salama, head of the camp’s popular committee, estimated that 80 percent of its 15,000 residents had been displaced.

Both Salama and Fowler said that obtaining precise figures was challenging because of the security situation within the camp and its fluctuating population.

“The displaced people from the camp are scattered in the suburbs and in the city of Tulkarem itself,” Salama said.

He said that six people had been killed and dozens wounded since the offensive began on Jan. 25.

“The bombing of residential homes in the camp continues, along with destruction and bulldozing of everything.”

Salama also reported that the violence has severely restricted the movement of goods into the camp.