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Catholic Leaders Warn of Dire Winter Crisis in Gaza as Floods Compound Suffering

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Gaza (Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash)

Gaza’s displaced face flooding and shortages as winter hits; Catholic aid groups struggle under blockade while Pope Leo XIV calls for peace in Middle East.

Newsroom (03/12/2025 Gaudium Press ) As winter rains turn displacement camps into quagmires and a fragile cessation of large-scale bombing offers little real relief, Catholic leaders in the Holy Land are sounding the alarm: Gaza remains in a state of acute humanitarian emergency more than two years after the Israel-Hamas war erupted.

“The situation continues to be critical,” said Joseph Hazboun, regional director for the Catholic Near East Welfare Association-Pontifical Mission (CNEWA-Pontifical Mission) in Jerusalem. Speaking to OSV News, Hazboun described how Israel’s continuing siege and blockade “hardly allows serious relief efforts,” severely restricting the flow of shelter, food, and medical supplies.

His assessment aligns closely with that of Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. In a Nov. 19 interview with Vatican News, the cardinal said “everything remains to be done” to restore normal life in Gaza. While acknowledging that humanitarian aid now enters “more regularly than before,” he stressed the volumes remain “still far from sufficient given the needs.”

Recent heavy rainfall has dramatically worsened conditions. Flooding has swept through tent camps, destroying bedding, clothing, and what few possessions displaced families still have. The United Nations reported Dec. 1 that flooding “remains a major risk,” with workers using sandbags at 41 sites and reinforcing drainage channels. The World Bank has noted that rainfall events in Gaza have grown more intense in recent decades, producing frequent flash floods.

“Water is needed — of course — but in Gaza ‘water’ often means mud in an already dire situation,” Cardinal Pizzaballa observed.

CNEWA-Pontifical Mission has distributed limited tents and hygiene kits, but Hazboun acknowledged the constraints: “There isn’t much that we can do… tents are not available,” and those in use offer scant protection against inundation. The agency has also supplied laboratory equipment to the ecumenical Near East Council of Churches and a special grant to Gaza’s Al-Ahli Arab Hospital for treating war-related burn victims.

Healthcare across the Strip remains crippled. As of Nov. 30, the U.N. reported only 224 of 592 functional health points were operating at all — and of those, just eight were fully functional. Nineteen of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially working, with slow progress such as the gradual reopening of a seven-bed pediatric ICU at Al Shifa Hospital.

Amid the devastation, Hazboun said his office is turning to Gaza’s youth for innovative ideas, including recycling debris for water desalination, alternative energy, cooking gas, and better shelter solutions. “Besides these very limited interventions,” he added, “we continue to pray for an end to the war and the killing of people that has never stopped since the ceasefire.”

The war, which began Oct. 7, 2023, with Hamas attacks that killed some 1,200 Israelis and took 251 hostages, has claimed more than 70,000 Palestinian lives, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

Gaza’s tiny Christian community — now reduced to just 596 individuals from 207 families — has suffered acutely. Holy Family Parish, the Strip’s only Catholic church, has endured multiple strikes. In December 2023, an elderly woman and her daughter were shot dead on church grounds; in July 2025 the compound was hit again, killing three and wounding others, including pastor Father Gabriel Romanelli.

Most remaining Christians shelter either at Holy Family (382 people) or St. Porphyrios Greek Orthodox Church (214 people), which itself was struck in 2023 and 2024.

In the West Bank, Cardinal Pizzaballa highlighted rising attacks on Christian villages such as Taybeh, where homes and cars have been vandalized.

CNEWA-Pontifical Mission is finalizing a comprehensive survey to determine how many Christians intend to stay in Gaza once borders reopen and what housing assistance those who remain will require.

The warnings from Catholic leaders came as Pope Leo XIV, concluding his apostolic journey to Turkey and Lebanon, used some of his strongest language yet on the Middle East crisis. Speaking in Beirut Dec. 2 after celebrating Mass, the pope insisted “new approaches” are urgently needed “to reject the mindset of revenge and violence” and “to open new chapters in the name of reconciliation and peace.”

“We need to change course,” Pope Leo said. “We need to educate our hearts for peace. From this square, I pray for the Middle East and all peoples who suffer because of war.”

Days earlier in Turkey, on Nov. 27, he had declared that “the future of humanity is at stake” amid continuing regional conflict — words that followed a U.N. Security Council endorsement of a U.S.-backed peace plan many on the ground still regard as distant from Gaza’s harsh daily reality.

  • Raju Hasmukh with files from OSV News

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