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A young Palestinian amputee is seen Jan. 20 walking past the rubble of houses and buildings in Al-Bureij in the central Gaza Strip destroyed during the Israel- Hamas war. A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was finalized Jan. 17, but the humanitarian situation remains “bleak,” said CNEWA’s Joseph Hazboun.
OSV News photo/Khamis Saeed, Reuters
January 31, 2025
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OSV News photo/Norlys Perez, Reuters
The long-awaited and elusive ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has silenced bombs and halted air raids on the Gaza Strip, for the time being, but the humanitarian situation there is dire, reports the regional director of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association.
A pontifical charity, CNEWA is tending to the needs of thousands of people including children left without families, pregnant women, new mothers and the chronically ill in desperate need of health care.
“Gaza’s humanitarian situation is bleak,” Joseph Hazboun told The Catholic Register from his office in Jerusalem. “Over 17,000 Gaza children are without their families, many of them orphaned. An estimated 150,000 pregnant women are in desperate need of vital health services. Those with chronic illnesses have no medicine or access to medical treatment. Women and girls face sexual violence.”
The war has also taken a heavy toll on the mental health of children and adults who’ve had to endure the ordeal of a war launched by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which persisted until Jan. 19 while the parties involved resisted proposals for a peaceful settlement along the way, he said.
“One million children need mental health and psycho-social support for severe depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts,” he said, quoting numbers provided by UNICEF.
Hazboun is also deeply concerned about the dwindling numbers of Christians left in the Holy Land. One of his own staff, Sami Tarazi, lost both his parents while they were sheltering in the Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrios when it was struck by a missile, while Tarazi himself was out in the field carrying food and water to people of all faith groups.
“There are only 600 (Christians) left now,” Hazboun said.
He estimates that if the Rafah crossing is opened, there will be only 300 left.
But undaunted by the enormous challenges to addressing the human cost of war, CNEWA’s Pontifical Mission for Palestine (PMP) is moving forward with relief programs, he continued.
Currently, PMP-Jerusalem is delivering psycho-social programs in various areas of the Gaza Strip, providing food packages as well as funding a medical care program serving thousands of children, youth and women.
“Nutrition programs for mothers and children are a priority as chronic diseases continue to spread,” he said. “Medical care is urgently needed as patients have not seen a specialist in 15 months. Schools need to be opened and functional again to allow children to resume their education.
“We provide support to all of Gaza’s communities as well as the Christian community that will continue to call Gaza home,” he emphasized, adding that the aid programs are conducted in cooperation with partners and are dependent on funding by donors around the world.
Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), another pontifical charity that works in collaboration with the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, is also actively working to deliver critical humanitarian aid to the Christian community (and others) in Gaza, focusing on medical supplies, food and shelter assistance, since the Christian population there has been significantly impacted by the conflict and urgently needs support to rebuild their lives.
“The ceasefire agreement has been reached between Hamas and Israel... allowing the inhabitants of the Holy Land, affected by the war that broke out on Oct. 7, 2023, to breathe a sigh of relief and, above all, to finally hope for a lasting peace,” said Mario Bard, the Montreal-based head of information of ACN.
Hazboun cautioned however, that there are obstacles to both a lasting peace and challenges to the delivery of aid.
“The biggest challenge moving forward is the free movement of people and the reconstruction of Gaza, which will cost billions of dollars,” he said. “The checkpoints and road closures are worse after the ceasefire. All the side roads are blocked and we have to take a long route to get to Ramallah to avoid long hours of waiting at a busy checkpoint.”
Church leaders in the Holy Land have issued a joint statement saying: “The end of the war does not mean the end of the conflict, and it is imperative for both sides to address the issues that have been at the root of this conflict for too long.”
The prospects of an enduring peace look dim at this point, according to Hazboun and other observers, given the history of the ceasefire deal that has finally been brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt. An earlier ceasefire was only temporary and saw fewer than half of the Israeli hostages returned in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners before fighting broke out again.
“Only peace and freedom and a life with dignity for both Israelis and Palestinians can bring peace and security,” Hazboun said.
(Susan Korah is an Ottawa correspondent for The Catholic Register.)
A version of this story appeared in the February 02, 2025, issue of The Catholic Registerwith the headline "Ceasefire overshadows Gaza’s humanitarian crisis".
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