Nov 17, 2023
Author and communications strategist Joel Rosenberg issued an urgent plea to the Israeli government Friday, imploring leaders to quickly and systematically evacuate Christian Palestinians trapped in Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas. Rosenberg penned an open letter to “Israeli leaders at the highest levels of our government and the military,” detailing why he believes this evacuation must unfold. He spoke with CBN Digital on Friday to further frame the pressing matter.

“It’s a terrible situation, as you can imagine,” he said. “Everybody in Gaza wants to be out of Gaza right now.” But Rosenberg stressed an important difference between the millions of Muslims living there and the 1,000 or so remaining Christian minority members still trapped in the area: Hamas will target Christians just as they did Jews during the Oct. 7 terror attack.

While the Israeli government has spent the past five weeks since Hamas’ brutal terror attack urging Palestinians in the northern part of Gaza to move south, Christians had been hesitant. They have mostly sheltered inside three churches, where they are safe but have very little food, water, or medical supplies. They’re mostly trapped in these buildings because of the fighting going on outside. But Israeli forces have reportedly asked them to also move south.

“Starting in the last 24 hours, the IDF has been ordering the Palestinian Christians, ‘OK, now you really do have to move south, because there’s so many more operations we have to do,'” Rosenberg said. “Well, the problem is … they’re terrified to go south, because they’re not Muslims, they’re Christians, and the Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, and other violent, genocidal, Islamist extremists are gonna slaughter these Christians.” He continued, “They’re gonna rape the wives and the daughters, just like they’ve done in Syria, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, anywhere else where these guys operate.”

Rosenberg said it’s not a good idea to move these Christians south and has been calling on Israeli forces to come up with another plan, imploring officials both behind the scenes and through his letter to take action and come up with an alternative option.

Pray for ‘Terrified’ Palestinian Christians