Share Tweet By Billy Hallowell Editor
November 20, 2023

Author and communications strategist Joel Rosenberg issued an urgent plea to the Israeli government Friday, imploring leaders to quickly and systematically evacuate Christian Palestinians trapped in Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas.

Rosenberg penned an open letter to “Israeli leaders at the highest levels of our government and the military,” detailing why he believes this evacuation must unfold. He spoke with CBN Digital on Friday to further frame the pressing matter.

“It’s a terrible situation, as you can imagine,” he said. “Everybody in Gaza wants to be out of Gaza right now.”

But Rosenberg stressed an important difference between the millions of Muslims living there and the 1,000 or so remaining Christian minority members still trapped in the area: Hamas will target Christians just as they did Jews during the Oct. 7 terror attack.

Watch him explain:

While the Israeli government has spent the past five weeks since Hamas’ brutal terror attack urging Palestinians in the northern part of Gaza to move south, Christians had been hesitant.

“The Israeli Defense Forces have been opening up secure lanes for people to evacuate, to get to the south, and have been helping the international community bring in food, clean water, medical supplies, and so forth,” Rosenberg said. “So, that’s all good.”

But Palestinian Christians, he said, have mostly sheltered inside three churches, where they are safe but have very little food, water, or medical supplies. They’re mostly trapped in these buildings because of the fighting going on outside.

Listen to them on the latest episode of Quick Start ?

But Israeli forces have reportedly asked them to also move south.

“Starting in the last 24 hours, the IDF has been ordering the Palestinian Christians, ‘OK, now you really do have to move south, because there’s so many more operations we have to do,’” Rosenberg said. “Well, the problem is … they’re terrified to go south, because they’re not Muslims, they’re Christians, and the Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, and other violent, genocidal, Islamist extremists are going to slaughter these Christians.”

He continued, “They’re gonna rape the wives and the daughters, just like they’ve done in Syria, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, anywhere else where these guys operate.”

Rosenberg said it’s not a good idea to move these Christians south and has been calling on Israeli forces to come up with another plan, imploring officials both behind the scenes and through his letter to take action and come up with an alternative option.

One idea, he said, is to get the Palestinian Christians into the West Bank where they can at least have a semblance of security and safety. Rosenberg called on Christians to pray for doors to open and for officials to realize the dangers of moving these Christians.

He said it’s believed the Christians only have a few days before they’ll need to move as per the IDF’s orders.

UPDATE: Gazas 1,000 Christians need urgent prayers, aid, and a safe haven, lest they face genocide from Hamas. Israeli officials have a special responsibility to make sure these Christians are safe and cared for. Heres the latest. https://t.co/kxZwAvBTSj via @all_israel_news— Joel C. Rosenberg (@JoelCRosenberg) November 19, 2023

“We need to keep praying in a very specific and targeted way that everybody, every decision maker that needs to be aware, becomes aware in the next 24 hours,” Rosenberg said of the troubling situation. “The prayer is in the next 24 hours that a decision gets made on what is the best way to do it.”

His letter further implored Israeli leaders to realize the fears these Christians currently experience.

“If they are forced out of the historic church buildings the safe havens, in which they are currently sheltering in and around Gaza City and are sent to the south, they believe they face genocide, too,” Rosenberg wrote.

After penning the original letter, the author reported over the weekend that high-ranking Israeli officials are now discussing the matter, though Rosenberg is unsure whether a decision has been made.

“But the matter is squarely on their radar screen,” he added. “And this is a good thing.”

Rosenberg also addressed critics who called his letter alarmist and who reported differing views among Palestinian Christians. See him address those critiques here.

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