By Diyar Guldogan
WASHINGTON (AA) - As Christmas Eve celebrations in the West Bank city of Bethlehem were halted due to the Israel-Hamas war, a reverend asked: "Where is God?"
"Christ is under the rubble. We are angry. We are broken. This should have been a time of joy. Instead, we are mourning. We are fearful," Munther Isaac started his address during the "Christ in the Rubble: A Liturgy of Lament" service at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem.
"Gaza as we know it no longer exists. This is an annihilation. This is a genocide. The world is watching. Churches are watching," Isaac continued, saying the Western world does not see Palestinians as "equal."
Despite the "immense blow," the Palestinians have endured, he said, adding they will be ok.
"We, the Palestinians will recover. We will rise. We will stand up again from the midst of destruction as we have always done as Palestinians,” he said.
"Let me say it. We will not accept your apology after the genocide. What has been done has been done. I want you to look in the mirror and ask: Where was I when Gaza was going through a genocide?”
Palestinians were troubled by the silence of God, Isaac said, adding: "We have searched for God and found him under the rubble in Gaza...If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza."
Isaac stressed that Christmas is not about Santa, trees and gifts, and lights.
"This message is our message to the world today, and it is simply this: This genocide must stop now!" he said.
While Isaac was delivering his Christmas sermon, the church’s nativity display showed a baby Jesus doll wrapped in a Palestinian keffiyeh lying in a pile of rubble to represent Gaza's destruction.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 20,424 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 54,036 others, according to health authorities in the enclave.
Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.
The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with half of the coastal territory's housing damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely-populated enclave amid shortages of food and clean water.