News of continued bombings in Gaza killing more than 22,500 Palestinians and of Israeli raids in the West Bank killing more Palestinians, as well as the cancellation of Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem, brought back memories of my life in Gaza between 1996 and 1998.
A difficult existence
The Palestinian chauffeur who worked in the Representative Office of India to the Palestinian Authority in Gaza had no permit to leave Gaza. Like thousands of other Gazans, he was virtually a prisoner in the world’s largest prison. Therefore, for meetings in Ramallah or Jerico or Bethlehem in the West Bank, we were our own chauffeurs in our official car.
The first time I drove to Bethlehem from Gaza in 1996, after crossing the usual Israeli check points on the way, I took a wrong turn and found myself in the middle of an intersection. Fully armed Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers stood on my right by their armoured vehicles. On my left, through tear gas, I saw Palestinian youngsters throwing stones at the IDF. I was in the middle of their fight in my black Volvo. The soldiers and the Palestinians were as surprised to find me there as I was to find them. I immediately reversed the car right to the end of my lane, all the while thinking that it was better to be shot in the chest than from behind. I then took the bigger, winding adjacent main road and saw a series of shops in a market, where Palestinian women and children were going about their daily shopping as if there was no fighting going on just a couple of roads away. In one defining image, I saw how people under occupation do not give up their fight but at the same time seek normalcy in their daily lives.
The indiscriminate killings of Palestinians in Gaza led to the Christmas celebrations in Palestine being cancelled last year. Unless one has travelled across the Holy Land, it’s difficult to appreciate how historically Christianity has been woven into the fabric of Palestinian life. In 1996, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was a mixed experience. Since I had seen the grandeur and pomp of the Vatican and other grand churches around the world, I had expected the adherents of the faith, irrespective of their denominations, from around the world to have contributed to build a grand church in the spot where Jesus was born. But the Church of the Nativity was anything but that; it was neglected and forlorn and had fallen into disrepair. However, I was overwhelmed at ‘the Grotto’, the manger where Jesus was born. It was at this hallowed site that Mary had “wrapped him (baby Jesus) in cloths and placed him in a manger.” While many landmarks across the Holy Land, such as the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish at Tabgha, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem gave emphatic physical context to the Christian faith, it made sense to keep Bethlehem as simple and dignified as possible to preserve its divinity and reflect the way Jesus came into this world — quietly and almost unnoticed.
But in 1996, it was evident that Bethlehem coming into the hands of the Palestinian Authority had made little difference to the business of shopkeepers there. One shopkeeper told me in a matter-of-fact way that tourists arrived in Israeli buses and were advised not to shop in Bethlehem since Palestinians are “bad, violent people” and their lives would be at risk. Today, the situation is far worse. The violence of the Israeli settlers in the West Bank is forcing Palestinians to choose between their livelihoods and lives. Even their olive trees have not been spared.
The midnight mass in Bethlehem on December 24, 1996, was conducted not in the Church of the Nativity but in the adjacent Catholic Franciscan Church of St. Catherine with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and others present. The mood was festive; Manger Square was decorated. It was a moment of hope for Palestinians of all faiths and they prayed for a better future. Now, with no Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem, they still wait for a better future, but without any hope or optimism.
The fight for Palestine
Apart from the terror attack of October 7, the disservice Hamas has done is project the conflict as one between Muslims and Jews rather than between Palestinians and Israelis. The fight is for Palestine — a nation which has belonged to Muslims, Christians, and Jews and not just to the people of one religion or another. The Palestine Liberation Organisation consisted of factions from the left to the right of the ideological spectrum before Israel propped up Hamas in Gaza as a counterpoise. Israel may decide to be Jewish, but Palestinians are Arabs consisting of both Muslims and Christians, even if the latter have dwindled in the recent past. And Israel has targeted them both. On December 16, 2023, two Christian women were killed by the IDF inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza. The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem recently issued a communique saying it is possibly under the “greatest existential threat” in its history. In October, Israel bombed the Church of Saint Porphyrius, the oldest church in Gaza, killing 18 Palestinians. The Missionaries of Charity of Mother Theresa in Gaza, which celebrated the golden jubilee in Gaza in the earlier months of 2023, were targeted by IDF rocket fire. In 1996, India’s Representative Office in Gaza was in close touch with the Indian sisters. When asked what they wanted from India, their only request was Rin detergent bar since it kept their blue-bordered white cotton sarees whiter than any detergent could in Gaza.
T.S. Tirumurti was Ambassador/Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations (2020-22) and first Indian Representative to the Palestinian Authority in Gaza (1996-98)
