RAMALLAH, January 5, 2026 (WAFA) – The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine issued an urgent appeal to churches around the world to protect humanitarian work in the Gaza Strip.
Ramzi Khouri, member of the PLO Executive Committee and head of the Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine, said in a message addressed to world churches that they are being approached at a moment of an extremely dangerous development that strikes at the core of human values and the Church’s mission.
He explained that this development is manifested in the systematic targeting of international non-governmental organizations operating in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, through decisions to suspend, ban, and terminate registrations, affecting 37 humanitarian institutions, including organizations with a clear Christian mission that have long constituted a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of besieged civilians.
He added that what is unfolding in Gaza today is no longer merely a restriction on humanitarian work, but rather a systematic attempt to criminalize relief itself and paralyze institutions that sustain the bare minimum of life in the face of siege, war, and comprehensive collapse.
Khouri stressed that silence at this moment cannot be understood as neutrality, but is instead interpreted as moral abandonment, noting that preventing humanitarian work and criminalizing relief—at a time of a documented need for hundreds of aid trucks daily—constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law and a stark contradiction of Christian teachings that place the human being and human dignity at the core of the message.
He appealed to world churches to declare a clear position rejecting the targeting and banning of international NGOs, to exert moral and international pressure to open crossings and ensure the entry of aid in the humanitarian quantities required, and to stand by Gaza not with words alone, but with positions that translate faith into action.
T.R.
