Our Advent stories this year are harrowing yet heartening accounts sent to us from the Holy Land by our partner, Caritas Jerusalem. As the world has stood by watching, nearly 45,000 people have been killed and more than 104,000 have been injured in Gaza over the past 14 months. But even with Israeli bombs raining around them, obliterating life and all that sustains it, Caritas Jerusalem has vowed, “We remain committed to our mission of peace and hope.” These are the stories of their staff, who surmount unimaginable challenges to deliver aid and succour, an effort enabled in part by the generosity of Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada’s supporters.
“Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast. On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God.”
― Psalm 22:9-10
Over 2,000 years ago, another pregnant woman trod this Holy Land. Like this one, she had faced untold adversities. And while she had borne in her womb the Son of God, this one bears in her heart the hope that He ignited for eternity.
This expectant mother, Mai Qaisy lives in Bethlehem, where life was never easy for Palestinians. As a senior project coordinator for Caritas Jerusalem, she knew better than most what living under Israeli occupation meant. “We did not have a perfect life; there was always pressure, tension and problems,” she said. “But even with all these stresses… and movement restrictions, we still had hope. We worked. We tried to live with dignity and use our rights as Palestinians.”
A tradition of solidarity
In their pursuit of dignity and rights, the Palestinian people have always relied on solidarity―their hardship-forged solidarity with one another and the solidarity of people like you with them. This latter has allowed Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada to remain an unwavering ally to Caritas Jerusalem over decades.
In the last year alone, with support from us and others in the Caritas family, Caritas Jerusalem has provided emergency relief; shelter; food; water, sanitation and hygiene; healthcare; psychosocial support; and livelihood services to over a million Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
For years, another of our partners has provided legal services to safeguard the precarious social, economic, legal, land, housing and mobility rights of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
A quest for stability
In many ways, Mai’s life is reflective of the aspirations and anguish of all Palestinians. Before Israel’s current carnage in Gaza began, the people had, against all odds, hung on to a semblance of normalcy and even dared to dream a little.
“On a personal level, I tried to settle down before the war,” Mai recounted, adding, “I got married to have a stable and secure life.” But within a month of her nuptials, the happy bride had to contend with the explosion of violence that has not abated in over a year.
A time of uncertainty
While the bulk of the bloodletting has been in Gaza, the West Bank has not been spared. “I have not left Bethlehem since October 7th,” Mai reported, “I do not know what is going on in the outside world. We fear movement.”
Her fears are not unfounded. In the year since hostilities began, Israeli occupation forces and settlers conducted over 1,600 attacks across the West Bank, killing more than 740 Palestinians and demolishing more than 1,800 structures. They have also systematically destroyed olive groves and disrupted agriculture.
All this has taken a toll on Mai’s work. Focused in an area now considered too dangerous, most of the projects she oversaw had to be postponed or cancelled. Women in refugee camps were hit the hardest by these delays and shutdowns. The few projects that could continue faced additional challenges. “It was even very difficult to purchase the resources and supplies we needed for these projects due to road closures,” Mai explained, confessing, “We do not know what is next.”
A resolve for revival
Even as the future began seeming “nebulous,” Mai discovered she was pregnant and had her own little miracle to look forward to. Like all mothers-to-be, she kept thinking of her baby’s future, wondering “Is he/she going to experience the same life we live? Or a better one?” Her apprehensions were exacerbated by her terrifying realities.
But, as Pope Francis once observed, “Mothers are always, even in the worst moments, witnesses of tenderness, dedication and moral strength.”
And so, Mai, said, “Despite all the tension, pressure and frustration we have faced during this period, we constantly try to revive hope.” With the quietly transcendental resolve that has become typical of her people, she added, “We will remain firm and proceed in life, both professionally and personally, at all levels.”
Mai’s determination is undergirded by the steadfastness of her organization. Suspensions and circumventions notwithstanding, Caritas Jerusalem has continued serving the Palestinian people through thick and thin. In Gaza, especially, its work over the past year has been lifesaving. Its efforts have been sustained, in no small measure, by the magnanimity of people like you.
Your support has also helped us echo and amplify Caritas Jerusalem’s consistent call for a ceasefire. Reiterating that call, Mai declared, “No matter what, as Palestinians, we always have hope.”
In this season of promise, please consider making a donation so that our partners can help realize the hopes of ever more mothers in the Holy Land and around the world.
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