A pastor in Bethlehem: We are broken. God is under the rubble in Gaza

They besieged our Palestinian family in Gaza, described them as monsters and blamed them. Israel Defence Forces bombed their homes, razed their neighbourhoods to the ground, displaced them and blamed them. Our families – brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces – took refuge in schools where they were bombed, in places of worship where they were bombed, and then they were blamed.

We are broken. The people of Gaza are suffering. They have lost everything except their dignity. Now, again in our history, they find themselves facing the same choice: death or displacement. Our Nakba continues.

Where are they to go? There is no place for them in this world.

The nations of the world – including the US – are against them. They use money, weapons, diplomacy and theology against the people of Palestine, the people of Gaza. They talk among themselves about where we will end up after our ethnic cleansing, as if we were extra boxes that have no place in the house.

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There is no mercy. Humanity is gone. There is no one to mourn our death. There is no one to stop this war machine because we are not from a certain people, religion or race. We are not among the “chosen ones”. The political powers of the world see us as an obstacle, not an ally.

[ Israel can take Gaza. But it cannot leave it ]

We were broken, and are broken again every day, by the images of death, especially when it comes close to us – our families, our sisters, our relatives and loved ones to whom we spoke daily. We are all broken. We hear terrifying stories about hell on earth. Hell is a reality in Gaza today. Our Palestinian siblings are in it now.

What is happening in Gaza is not a war or a conflict, but an annihilation – continuous genocide and ethnic cleansing through death and forced displacement. World political powers are sacrificing the people of Palestine in order to secure their interests in the Middle East. They offer us as sacrifices on the altar of atonement, as we pay the price for their sins with our lives.

Where is the justice? They talk about international law. They lecture us on human rights and look down upon us as if they are superior to everyone else in terms of values and morals. I say to them, “Go away with your laws and your talk about human rights.” You Europeans and Americans have been stripped naked in front of the whole world today. Your racism and hypocrisy have been exposed. Truly, is there no shame? I personally do not want to hear about peace and reconciliation.

The people of Gaza today want life. They want a night without bombing. They want medicine and surgical operations with anaesthesia. They want the simplest of life’s necessities: food, clean water and electricity. They want freedom and life with dignity. Those under bombardment, beatings and persecution do not want to hear about reconciliation and peace. They want the end of aggression.

They asked us to pray. The people of Gaza are still asking us to pray, and they are still praying. Where do you get this faith?

[ Labyrinth of Hamas tunnels poses greatest threat to Israeli offensive in Gaza ]

We prayed. We prayed for their protection . . . and God did not answer us, not even in the “house of God” were church buildings able to protect them. Our children die before the silence of the world, and before the silence of God. How difficult is God’s silence. Today we cry out with the psalmists: we search for God on this land. Theologically, philosophically, we ask: Where is God when we suffer? How do we explain his silence?

But away from philosophy and existential questions. In this land, even God is a victim of oppression, death, the war machine and colonialism. We see the Son of God on this land crying out the same question on the cross: my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why do you let me be tortured? Crucified?

God suffers with the people of this land, sharing the same fate with us. God is under the rubble in Gaza. He is with the frightened and the refugees. He is in the operating room. This is our consolation. He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. If we want to pray, my prayer is that those who are suffering will feel this healing and comforting presence.

Rev Dr Munther Isaac is pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. This is an edited version of a sermon he preached after an Israeli strike on Gaza’s oldest active church, the historic St Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, in which 18 people died and many were injured among about 400 civilians taking shelter there. The sermon was first published in US magazine, Sojourners.