Fr. Musallam: “I am a Christian believer, but politically I am a Palestinian Muslim”

Earlier this year, the Islamist Hamas party took control of Gaza, home to a thriving Christian community now preparing to celebrate their first Christmas under Hamas rule.

Manawel Musallam - priest, headmaster and Gazan - is a rotund, avuncular man, fond of wearing berets.  I have come to his office to ask how Christians in Gaza were faring on this, their first Christmas under the full internal control of Hamas.

"You media people!" Father Musallam boomed at me when I first poked my head around his door.  "Hamas this, Hamas that. You think we Christians are shaking in our ghettos in Gaza? That we're going to beg you British or the Americans or the Vatican to rescue us? Rescue us from what? From where? This is our home."

The pupils at the Holy Family School, Gaza City, all call Manawel Musallam "Abunah" - Our Father in Arabic.  His is a huge family of 1,200 children and, although the school is part-funded by the Vatican, here, as in all of Gaza, Christians are the minority.

Our identity is a multi-layered one Father Manawel Musallam

Ninety-nine percent of the pupils here are Muslim. This is one of the reasons Fr Musallam says he does not fear the Islamists.

"They should be afraid. Not me," he chuckled.  "Their children are under my tutelage, in my school. Hamas mothers and fathers are here at parents' day along with everyone else."
Read on