A day much longed for finally arrived when a ceasefire began Jan. 19 between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza. 

The fragile agreement, which almost unraveled several times since it was announced four days ago, saw the release of three Israeli women hostages in return for 90 Palestinian prisoners on the first day. A total of 33 Israelis, are to be exchanged for more than 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, some of them hard-core convicted terrorists, over the next six weeks in the first stage of this agreement. Later stages are to include the release of all remaining hostages and the reconstruction of Gaza.

In Lebanon, meanwhile, another ceasefire, agreed upon between Israel and the terrorist group Hezbollah on Nov. 26, is set to expire on Jan. 26 although it seems that the deadline will likely be extended. Under the terms of that ceasefire, a full Hezbollah withdrawal south of the Litani River was to be followed by an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, the vacuum to be filled by the Lebanese Army (LAF) and U.N. peacekeepers. But neither Hezbollah nor Israel have fully withdrawn, nor has the LAF been able yet to replace them. Lebanon was able to take advantage of the relative calm in the interim to elect a new president and a reformist prime minister. According to long-established tradition, Lebanon’s president is always a Maronite Catholic and its prime minister a Sunni Muslim.

An even more fragile calm hangs over Syria, a country that has seen momentous changes over the past month with the fall of the Assad regime to a coalition of Sunni Islamist militant groups backed by Turkey on Dec. 8. Israel took advantage of Assad’s fall to improve its position along the border, seizing 400 square kilometers of a buffer zone and a strategic high point on Mount Hermon. 

Turkey, the ally of Syria’s new rulers, also occupies large swathes of northern Syria while U.S.-supported Syrian Kurds control much of the country’s northeast. Israel described its own recent moves as “limited and temporary measures” in response to a security vacuum on the Syrian side. There had been a formal disengagement agreement in place between the two hostile states since May 1974, in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. 

Christians in all three places — Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria — are deeply grateful for the calm if wary about the future. The Catholic ordinaries of the Holy Land issued a statement on Jan. 16 hailing the news of a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-prisoner release. The bishops prayed that “this ceasefire will bring a sense of serenity and relief to all” and called for a solution to this long-standing struggle that would include “a willingness to acknowledge each other’s suffering.” They also hoped that pilgrimages to the holy places in the Holy Land, the life-blood of local Christian communities, will resume soon.  

According to ACI MENA, the number of Christians in Gaza has decreased from 1,017 people before the war to about 600 today. About 45 Gaza Christians died during the conflict either through violence or from chronic diseases exacerbated by lack of medicines and access to health care.

In Lebanon, some Christian villages were spared from the fighting, while others were partially damaged along the country’s southern border. Tens of thousands of people, including many Christians, were displaced and now seek to rebuild their lives while hoping that the fragile truce holds, finally breaking a grim cycle of Hezbollah attacks and Israeli counterstrikes.

In Syria, for the first time in over a decade, Christian families no longer have to fear their sons being forced to fight and die as draftees for the Assad regime. The joy of liberation and freedom from war is tempered by fear of extremism and intolerance in power. What may seem to outsiders as relatively minor incidents — the partial burning of a Christmas tree in one town, some Islamic posters calling on women to dress modestly in a Damascus Christian quarter — have heightened Christian fears and uncertainty. These communities know from bitter experience how things can always get worse, and how quickly this can happen. 

In all three places, war and insecurity over many years have driven many Christian families to emigrate and it is far too soon to know if the extremely fragile and complicated arrangements and understandings in place today will hold. 

Now comes the harder part — rebuilding what was lost — as the world’s interest, and that of Christians too, all too easily turns elsewhere. Now is the time for solidarity, for not just maintaining but restoring, whether that is the physical rebuilding of communities, or forging new ties with Syrian Christians who had been isolated by now-eased sanctions, or even something as seemingly mundane as booking that church pilgrimage to the Holy Land. 

As Pope Francis wrote in his bull of indiction launching the 2025 Jubilee Year, we are “pilgrims of hope,” a hope that does not fade and that inspires both us and the Christians of the East “to recognize the stability and security that is ours amid the troubled waters of this life, provided we entrust ourselves to the Lord Jesus.”  

 

Alberto M. Fernandez is a former U.S. diplomat and a contributor to EWTN News.