Internally displaced families from Gaza’s Shajaiya neighborhood, which has come under intense Israeli bombardment, seek refuge in the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, July 22, 2014. (photo by Wissam Nassar)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — On July 19, Greek Orthodox Archbishop Alexius was reciting prayers to a small congregation in the only Greek Orthodox Church in the Gaza Strip. He was surrounded by the Byzantine-style icons hung on the walls, the scent of incense filling this 1,600-year old-church.

But he was reciting prayers to a largely empty church, with few
attending due to the war. Deacon Rami Ayad, nevertheless, expected the
church to be filled with worshipers the next day, a Sunday, and said,
“There are not many worshipers usually on Saturday, but we are expecting
more, particularly those who live in the area.” After a loud noise
interrupted him, he said, “It is a rocket launched by the resistance.”
Abdullah Jahshan, a 29-year-old worshiper, told Al-Monitor, “I am
here to attend the prayer service because I live close to the church. My
family will attend prayer on Sunday. If I were not living nearby, I
would not have come because of the intense shelling everywhere.”
Alexius presented a piece of blackened shrapnel the size of his palm.
It had come from an Israeli missile which fell in the courtyard of the
church during the shelling nearby. “If I was sitting in the courtyard,
where I usually sit and read, this shrapnel would have hit me and I
would have died a martyr, as happened with the others during this war,”
he said.
On Sunday, things did not go as planned. It was not because of an
absence of worshipers, but because of the bloodbath that took place in
the Shajaiya neighborhood, where 72 Palestinians died. More than 100,000 have fled their homes. As a result, the church doors were opened to them.
On Monday, Al-Monitor returned to the church, which was teeming with
families, children and women. Deacon Ayad smiled and said, “We canceled
the prayer. The residents who fled their homes in Shajaiya knocked on
our door at 7 a.m.” He said he had asked the archbishop first, who
agreed that the doors of the church must be opened and the Sunday prayer
canceled.
Ayad said the church had welcomed roughly 400 internally displaced
persons from Shajaiya, adding that they have also “opened shops and
houses to accommodate another 600 people. The neighbors are donating to
everyone and the church is providing the youth in the mosque nearby with
money to get food and break the fast at sunset, since they are fasting
(for Ramadan).”
In the inner courtyard of the church, dozens of men were lying on the
ground. Wael Jundiyah, 39, said, “We ran outside our homes on
al-Mansoura Street in Shajaiya, which is adjacent to the Karni crossing.
The shelling was heavy and we saw people dead in the streets while we were trying to save our lives yesterday morning.”
Ihab Bahtiti, 30, who carried Ihab, his 2-year-old son, had fled the
Shajaiya shelling. “We had endured the shelling throughout the night and
we had the feeling that it was about our last moments. At sunrise, my
family and I ran away and, thank God, my wife, son, mother and I reached
the church. We all feel safe here,” he told Al-Monitor.

Internally displaced families from
Gaza’s Shajaiya neighborhood seek refuge in the Greek Orthodox Church of
Saint Porphyrius, July 22, 2014. Photo by: Wissam Nassar
In a hall of the church, dozens of women were sitting, chatting and
sharing their experience from their areas. Khitam Jundiyah, 31, said,
“My 10 children and I were saved miraculously. There were violent
clashes between the resistance and the occupation and our homes are
located on the front lines.”
Khitam pointed out that most of the women were barefoot, their feet
swollen and black. “We were running barefoot, and we could feel the
corpses we stepped on. Isra, my daughter, told me. ‘Mum, I stepped on
the hand of a child.’”
Shocked and silent, Isra was sitting next to her mother. The expression of her face was vacuous, abnormal for a child her age.
The women who spoke to Al-Monitor all agreed that they felt safe in
the church, despite the loud sound of tank shells every few seconds. The
fifth century Church of Saint Porphyrius is close to the Shajaiya
neighborhood. It is in eastern Gaza City in Harat az-Zaytoun, which is
one of the most ancient and popular neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip. It
is also adjacent to the ancient and historic Kateb al-Welaya Mosque.
Nazha Succar, 49, has had no news of his family members since he fled
Shajaiya. “We know nothing about the rest of our family members. We
have seen moments we used to see on TV while watching the news on Syria.
The corpses I saw in the street reminded me of the Sabra and Shatila
massacre (near Beirut, Lebanon in 1982).” Nazra was still unaware that
30 members of the Succar family died in the random tank shelling in
Shajaiya.
Salama Shalh, 14, and Ahmed Juha, 17, both of whom fled Shajaiya with
their families and were staying in the church hall, asked the deacon,
Ayad, “Do Christians pray once a year?” He replied “No, they pray every
Sunday.” Curiously, they asked him, “What does it (the church) look like
inside?” Ayad seemed confused. So, I answered them, “It looks just like
a mosque.”