An Incomplete Christmas: Gaza’s Christians Mark a Holy Season With Absent Joy, reporting from inside Gaza

In Gaza this year, Christmas arrives without its most essential ingredient: joy. The churches still stand, however partially destroyed, the prayers are still whispered, and candles still flicker against the darkness. However, the celebration feels incomplete, interrupted by grief that has no place to rest. For Gaza’s small Christian community, the holiday no longer marks festivity or reunion. It marks only absence.

YOU SHOULD READ THIS PIECE WITH YOUR FAMILIES ON CHRISTMAS DAY

I spoke with three Christians in Gaza to provide me with how Christmas feels this year. They share me how they prepare for the Christmas in previous years, and how this year is different.

“Many seats are empty—names missing, voices silenced”

“The heart is heavy with loss,” says Mosa Ayad, 41. “But the spirit still clings to the message of Christmas—that light can be born even in the darkest moments.” His words hold the tension that defines this season: faith enduring under the weight of irreparable loss. This year, Christians in Gaza are observing Christmas amid the aftermath of genocide, following months of mass killing, displacement, and devastation, and during a so-called ceasefire that has brought neither safety nor healing.

For decades, Christmas in Gaza was modest but deeply communal. Families gathered, churches filled with hymns, streets and shops glowed with simple decorations, and children waited eagerly for gifts and visits. Today, those rituals feel almost unrecognizable.

“In previous years, preparation meant life,” Mosa says. “Decorations, carols, family gatherings, children’s smiles. Now preparation is limited to prayer—trying to mend broken hearts. There is no festive atmosphere or social celebration, only a quiet spiritual search for hope among the rubble. Family visits have been drastically reduced, and even moments of joy are restrained”

Mosa misses a lot about the Christmas atmosphere. “We miss the laughter that once filled homes, the warmth of family gatherings, children’s voices, the safety of the streets—and above all, those who are gone and will not return. We miss Christmas as we once knew it: full of life, not fear and tears.”

Churches have stripped celebrations down to their barest form. No parades. No public festivities. No crowded pews. “The church is doing everything it can to remain present as a space for prayer, refuge, and hope,” Mosa explains. “But the celebrations are symbolic, focused on spirituality rather than joy. Many seats are empty—names missing, voices silenced.”

“The holiday comes, but you are not here”

That silence is deafening for Ramez Al-Souri, 48, whose loss is unbearable in its scale. On October 19, 2023, he lost his three children in a massacre against Saint Porphyrius church: Suhail, 14, Julie, 12, and Majd,11. The church bid farewell to 19 martyrs on that day, including his children.

“Faith tells us that God governs all things,” Ramez says. “But losing my children was not just loss—it was the loss of everything.” He speaks of his children in the present tense: how they played, studied, drew, laughed, and loved going to the YMCA. As Christmas approaches, he imagines them sitting around him, as they once did. “The holiday comes,” he says quietly, “but you are not here.”

For Ramez, the meaning of Christmas has shifted entirely. The manger—once a symbol of divine birth—now mirrors Gaza itself: a place of suffering under rubble. “The grotto that once overflowed with joy now waits for visitors from Gaza who cannot come,” he says. For two years, Gazans have been cut off from Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ—now a distant symbol of both faith and exile.

Before the genocide on Gaza, Christmas meant visits from relatives and neighbors, shared meals, and a sense of continuity. Now, Ramez describes a city frozen in uncertainty. “There is no horizon,” he says. “The human being in Gaza is trying to rebuild history from ashes.” Even the Christmas tree, once a symbol of eternal life, stands differently now, if it stands at all. “It represents hope, yes,” he says, “but hope that is fragile.”

Travel restrictions, bombardment, and destruction have erased central rituals: journeys to Bethlehem, the lighting of the Christmas tree, the distribution of gifts to children. Churches, once considered protected under international law, became sites of refuge—and, at times, of death. “The Christian community suffered like the rest of Palestinian society,” Ramez says. “There was killing, displacement, fear. Gaza is still wounded. It has not healed.”

“The rituals are no longer celebrations….Absence dominates every moment”

For Montaser Tarazi, 37, Christmas this year feels heavy and unmistakable. “There is no waiting for external joy,” he says. “Only an internal clinging to faith in a harsh reality.” The transformation is not only emotional but structural. Where preparation was once collective—homes, churches, extended families—it is now fragmented, solitary, and often impossible due to displacement or fear.

“The rituals are no longer celebrations,” Montaser explains. “They are prayers for survival. The holiday inside families has become silent. Absence dominates every moment.” Even visiting relatives carries risk. “Sometimes, existence itself feels like an achievement,” he adds.

What Gaza’s Christians say they miss most is not decoration or ceremony, but safety: the ease of laughter, the warmth of gathering without fear, the simple assurance that loved ones will return home. Now, traditions are reduced to their smallest gestures—a candle lit in darkness, a whispered hymn, a smile offered to a child who still needs hope.

Displacement has fractured the communal essence of Christmas. Families are scattered, homes destroyed, and shared celebrations replaced by isolation. “Everyone celebrates alone,” Montaser says. “Or they do not celebrate at all.”

Despite this, faith persists—not as triumph, but as resistance. International churches and Christian organizations have offered moral and humanitarian support when possible, reminding Gaza’s Christians that they are not entirely unseen. Yet no amount of solidarity can close wounds that remain open.

When asked whether Christmas offers healing, the answer is careful, restrained. “The wound is very deep,” Mosa says. “But the holiday opens a small window toward healing.” Ramez is more resolute: “The wounds have not healed.” Still, even he acknowledges that remembrance itself—speaking names, recalling laughter—is a form of defiance against erasure.

The hardest memories surface uninvited: empty chairs, familiar voices gone, images from last year that now feel impossibly distant. The most beautiful memories are the simplest—families gathered, children laughing, cities filled with peace and warmth instead of fear.

To the world, Gaza’s Christians send a message that echoes across denominations and borders: We are not numbers. “We are families, stories, faith, and real pain,” Mosa says. “We love life despite everything.”

This Christmas in Gaza is incomplete—not because faith has faded, but because joy has been buried alongside the lost ones. And yet, even here, candles are still lit. Not to celebrate, but to testify.

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