Cardinal Pizzaballa visits Gaza for pre-Christmas Mass as Israel approves 19 new West Bank settlements, deepening tensions in the region.
Newsroom (21/12/2025 Gaudium Press ) In a rare moment of spiritual reflection amid ongoing devastation, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the top Catholic leader in the Holy Land, visited Gaza’s only Catholic church on Sunday to celebrate a pre-Christmas Mass. The gathering at the Holy Family Parish drew dozens of Palestinian faithful, including the baptism of a baby named Mario — a symbol of renewal in a battered community struggling to reclaim a sense of normal life.
The church, one of the oldest institutions in Gaza’s small Christian enclave, has borne direct scars of the war. In July, fragments from an Israeli shell struck the church compound, killing three people in what Israel described as an accident and later expressed regret for. Today, it stands both as a sanctuary and a testament to endurance.
Cardinal Pizzaballa’s visit marked his fourth to Gaza since the outbreak of the war. Arriving Friday, he made rounds across the territory — visiting hospitals, humanitarian projects, and families forced to live in displaced persons camps along the Gaza seafront, according to the Latin Patriarchate. Speaking to worshippers during the Mass, the cardinal acknowledged their hardship yet urged them to hold fast to resilience and faith.
“You are in a very precarious situation like many others in practically all of Gaza,” he told parishioners. “We think that the powers of the world will decide our future. But then in reality, it is we the people here who will decide how to rebuild everything.”
Pizzaballa’s message wove together themes of survival, reconstruction, and spiritual renewal. “Don’t lose your hope,” he said. “Now, we are in a new phase… we have not just to survive, but also to rebuild life.” Calling on Gaza’s Christians to embody the “spirit of light” and “tenderness” of Christmas, the cardinal reminded them, “Now it seems impossible, but after two years of terrible war, we are still here.”
While Pizzaballa’s visit underscored the fragile persistence of Gaza’s Christian minority, events elsewhere in the region painted a picture of deepening division. On the same day, Israel’s Cabinet approved the establishment of 19 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank — a move hailed by far-right Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich as a “continuation of historic redemption” and condemned by critics as another blow to the prospects of Palestinian statehood.
Two of the newly approved settlements had previously been evacuated during the 2005 disengagement plan. According to Smotrich, Sunday’s approvals bring the total number of new settlements established under the current government to 69. Data from Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog, indicate that the pace of construction has accelerated sharply: the West Bank counted 141 settlements in 2022, but will now rise to 210 — an increase of nearly 50 percent in just a few years.
The international community widely considers the settlements illegal under international law, and their rapid expansion adds further strain to an already volatile landscape. For many, the juxtaposition of Pizzaballa’s pastoral mission in Gaza with Israel’s political moves in the West Bank captures the stark contrast between hope and hardening realities on the ground.
As the holiday season approaches, Gaza’s faithful cling to the rituals of faith as a gesture of persistence against despair. In the flicker of candlelight during Sunday’s Mass, Pizzaballa’s words resonated as both spiritual balm and quiet defiance: a reminder that even amid destruction, the human will to rebuild — and to believe — endures.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Crux Now
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