Gaza's Christian Population Has Halved Since October 2023, Church and Aid Officials Say

An Israeli airstrike in October 2023 hit a building inside the Church of Saint Porphyrius compound in Gaza City, where displaced Palestinians had taken shelter, killing civilians and damaging part of the historic complex, according to The New Arab, which cites UNESCO verification of the damage to the site.

The church, named for the bishop who helped establish Christianity in Gaza in the fourth and fifth centuries, is one of the oldest continuously used churches in the world. Its congregation is now a fraction of what it was.

Before the war, roughly 1,000 Christians lived in Gaza, according to estimates cited by The New Arab. Today the outlet reports estimates of 500 to 600 remaining, a figure Occupation Watch notes comes from unnamed sources and has not been independently verified by census or NGO data.

Bishop William Shomali, the Latin Patriarchal Vicar of Jerusalem, is quoted warning that Gaza's remaining Christians are exhausted and increasingly want to leave. Palestinian Christian activist Ihab Hassan described the demographic trap facing the community.

"Many of those who remain are elderly, and the young are the most likely to leave. A community of grandparents cannot survive on its own."

Lex Pouliot of the Vulnerable People Project told The New Arab that nearly 80 percent of Christian homes have been destroyed, along with almost every Christian institution in Gaza, including schools, cultural centers, libraries, and the local YMCA. Occupation Watch has not independently verified this figure, which comes from a single named source without an accompanying survey or damage assessment cited in the record.

A lineage older than the siege

Gaza's Christian roots trace to the earliest centuries of the faith, when the territory was part of Roman Palestine. By the fourth century it had become a center of Christian monasticism tied to St. Hilarion, born near Gaza around AD 291. The monastery site associated with him, Tell Umm Amer, was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2024 and simultaneously placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger because of the war.

Most of Gaza's Christians are Greek Orthodox, with a smaller Catholic population and a handful of Protestants, according to The New Arab. Pastor Hanna Massad, a Gaza-born Palestinian Christian who founded Christian Mission to Gaza, said the potential disappearance of the community would sever a line running back to the earliest days of the church, when Christianity first spread from Jerusalem to Arab communities in the region.

What happens next is unresolved. No census, UN agency, or church body has produced a verified current population count for Gaza's Christians. What is documented is the strike on the Saint Porphyrius compound, the UNESCO danger listing for Tell Umm Amer, and a chorus of named clergy and aid workers describing a community they say is aging, shrinking, and running out of reasons to stay.