GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (BP) — Gaza Baptist Church is heavily damaged, perhaps beyond repair. Its 50 or so members have all fled to safer ground.

But the Baptist witness has not left. “Donated by Gaza Baptist Church,” reads signs at distribution points where Christian Mission to Gaza (CM2G) serves 1,000 hot meals at a time to Muslim families in South Gaza.

An estimated 650 Catholic and Greek Orthodox Christians remain in Gaza, down from about 800 when the Israel-Hamas War began.

Nearly a year into the war, Hannah Massad, a former Gaza Baptist Church pastor who now leads CM2G, believes Christians in Gaza and those displaced will never fully recover, yet may cling to the hope found in Christ.

“Probably they will never be healed 100%. What’s happened will stay with them the rest of their lives and it will affect them the rest of their lives, in every level — mentally, spiritually, emotionally,” he told Baptist Press. “And some of them have been injured physically.

“But when we hear, and when we listen, and when we talk, people are tired, they’re exhausted, they’re scared, they’re afraid, they’re terrified, they’re anxious. They’ve just been through too much. The people say, ‘When, when will this be over?’ But we cannot live without hope.”

Even as Israel is pulled further into battle with Hezbollah and Iran, Israeli Baptists continue to serve the Lord as a Christian minority in the Jewish state.

Christians comprise about 1.9% of Israel’s population, or 188,000 people in the country of 9 million, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics and the U.S. State Department.

Najed Azzam, a board member of the Nazareth Baptist School founded by Southern Baptist missionaries in the 1930s, told Baptist Press he clings to his Christian identity as a witness for Jesus.

Nazareth has been threatened by the violence in recent weeks, as fighting has intensified with Hezbollah and Israel has suffered Iranian missile strikes. The Baptist school has held classes remotely the past two weeks, Azzam said, and is the only school in Nazareth currently equipped with a bomb shelter large enough to hold all of its 1,000 students, as Israeli law now requires.

Further north near the Lebanon border, Israelis were forced to evacuate early in the war during fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Azzam attends the Evangelical Baptist Church, a member of the Association of Baptist Churches in Israel, composed of 18 churches and 3,000 members.

“For the most part of it, the church is strong, the Baptist church, even the others,” he said. “Since the war started, there were prayer meetings, even combined prayer meetings between the Christian Arab believers and the Messianic Jewish believers. There were a few meetings where they prayed for peace and for God’s direction.”

Azzam faces unique challenges as an Arab Christian born in Nazareth after 1948 to a Christian family of Palestinian descent. He is an Israeli citizen in a time of war which has at its center land rights based on Jewish ancestry and biblical proclamation.

“All these identities affect the way I view everything,” he told Baptist Press, “including the way I interpret and read the Bible. But none of those I chose. I haven’t chosen any of these identities. But there’s one identity I chose and this is my identity in Christ and my citizenship in heaven. Choosing that identity and understanding it, then from that point of view, I see all the other identities as an assignment.”

His assignment, as he sees it, is to be a witness for Christ wherever Christ has placed him, especially during the war.

“So for me, attachment to the land is not that important, because my citizenship in the end is in heaven,” he said. “To fight for and die for the land, with that perspective, becomes not that important, right?”

While military conflicts between Israel and Palestine can be traced back decades, the Israel-Hamas War began when Hamas launched a series of surprise attacks on southern Israel Oct. 7-8, 2023, killing at least 1,139 people, injuring at least 8,730 and taking more than 250 hostages. More than 100 hostages remain captive, and Israel believes 64 are still alive, CBS News reported Oct. 3.

According to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, at least 41,788 people have died in Gaza in the war, including nearly 16,500 children, and more than 96,794 have been injured, but the ministry does not differentiate between fighters and civilians. Another 723 have been killed in the occupied West Bank, and more than 5,750 have been injured. More than 1.8 million Gazans have been displaced.

Israel intensified its attacks on southern Lebanon and its capital of Beirut, Gaza and the occupied West Bank Oct. 4, Al Jazeera reported in its live updates on the war, and has promised retaliation against Iran for its Oct. 1 barrage of 200 missile strikes on Israel.

Since October 2023, Israeli strikes have killed 1,974 and injured 9,384 in Lebanon, while damaging dozens of health facilities, Lebanese Minister of Health Firas Al-Abiad said Oct. 3.

Send Relief, the Southern Baptist compassion arm that provided humanitarian relief in Gaza, is already providing relief in Lebanon, Send Relief announced Oct. 2. Partnering with Lebanese Baptists, Send Relief is providing shelter, food, mattresses, blankets, medicine and other items.

“With Send Relief’s support, we are able to stand by our neighbors in their time of need,” Send Relief quoted Lebanese Baptist leader Nabil Costa in a post on X, “showing them the practical love of Christ and offering hope.”

The International Mission Board (IMB) released a guide to Pray for Peace in the Middle East, downloadable here.

Massad continues to hold weekly worship and prayer services online with displaced members and supporters of Gaza Baptist Church. He spoke to Baptist Press from Jordan last week as he ministered to Iraqi Christians and refugees through the CM2G.

CM2G provides financial support to families sheltered at the St. Porphyrios Greek Orthodox and the Holy Family Roman Catholic churches, as well as clothing and food.

After the war, contractors will assess the damage to Gaza Baptist Church to determine whether the five-story structure can be repaired or will need to be rebuilt.

“It’s very sad and it grieves our heart to see the damage,” Massad said of the church building. “The damage is severe and unfortunately the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) used our church building for several weeks as a military base and they had their hateful writings inside the building.”

But as long as the war endures — and beyond — Massad plans to continue in ministry.

“God put us here in the Middle East, and we don’t want to miss His purpose,” Massad said. “We want to reflect His love; we want to carry His presence wherever we go.

“And the Lord will be with the oppressed. He will be with the one who is in pain. He will be with the hard-pressed. He will be with the civilians who lost loved ones. So we just pray God helps us to be His feet and His hands wherever we are.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.)