Editor’s note: This article and accompanying video contain graphic depictions of the effects of war. Reader and viewer discretion are advised.
Help evacuate suffering Christians in Gaza: LifeFunder
(LifeSiteNews) — Jason Jones, a Catholic humanitarian who has helped evacuate people out of Afghanistan and Ukraine, recently spoke with LifeSite’s John-Henry Westen to discuss the plight of Christians in Gaza and how his organization, the Vulnerable People Project (VPP), is assisting them.
According to Jones, the situation in Gaza is “absolutely catastrophic,” with 80 percent of Christian homes destroyed and 4 percent of Christians killed in Gaza altogether, most of whom while attempting to find safety in a Gazan church. He also notes that the Christian community in Gaza is among the oldest in the world, established by the apostle St. James.
Speaking to this community’s plight itself, Jones says that Gazan Christians are used to Evangelicals acting as though they do not exist, yet it is “sorrowful” that many Catholics seem to have forgotten they exist or are indifferent to them.
Describing the situation for the Christians in Gaza, Jones tells Westen that there are 800 people sheltering in place at Holy Family Catholic Church, which has been bombed and is the last parish in Gaza. He recalls how Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) snipers shot two Christian women on their way into the parish and fired rockets upon a home for “unwanted, discarded, and mentally ill children” run by the Missionaries of Charity.
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“It’s hell on earth,” says Jones. “Our heart breaks that our ally Israel is behaving in such a brutal way, using our taxpayer dollars and using our weapons systems to slaughter the first century Christian community … of Gaza.”
Jones comments on photos of a nine-year-old girl who, along with her twin sister, was apparently hit by white phosphorus bombs while attempting to secure airdropped food. While the photographed girl survived the bombing, Jones believes her sister died immediately. The humanitarian tells Westen that the girl and her family were evacuated to an Egyptian hospital by VPP. White phosphorus, he explains, is a weapon that “just gets under your skin and it burns your skin.”
“As you can see, every square inch of her body, her face, her arms, every part of her body is covered in burns,” Jones tells Westen. He further states that 14,000 children in Gaza have been killed, children making up half of the city’s population.
Jones, reacting to the claim that the Israelis have taken greater precautions than any military in history to avoid civilian casualties, says that such a suggestion is “absolutely absurd.” He also points out he likewise finds unlikely the claim that Hamas is using civilians as human shields.
“They say that again, and again, and again,” Jones says.
“Every civilian casualty, I guess, every one of those 14,000 children was a human shield for Hamas, but then when you talk to the community in Gaza, that is absolutely not the case. And it’s most definitely not the case with the young woman who’s images we just saw of her covered in burns. And it’s not the case with Lara, the 18-year-old Christian girl who dropped, probably of heat stroke … on the quote-un-quote ‘safe route,’ and she’s a Christian young woman, and then when Palestinian Muslims went to rescue her, and give her aid, give her water, care for her, they were shot at.”
“This is not the instance of Palestinian Muslims using a Christian girl as a human shield,” asserts Jones. “Actually, Palestinian Muslims were running to help a Christian girl and being shot at by the IDF. And it happens again and again, day after day. And it’s going to continue to happen until the Christians in the West raise up their voice and say, ‘Enough is enough. Enough with the killing of civilians.’ We need a ceasefire immediately. This is an absolute disgrace.”
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When Westen asks Jones if the images coming out of Gaza are real and that the story is not “fake news,” Jones answers that the VPP is “pretty good” at its job. Although it managed to help people get out from behind Russian lines in Ukraine, getting supplies into Gaza has been the “greatest challenge” the organization has had to face. He likewise tells Westen that everyone the VPP gets out of Gaza, or “each little bit of aid” into the territory, is seen as a “great success.”
Jones also denounces the “strange characters acting childish on college campuses” who are attempting to use the Israeli government’s actions to stoke “Jew-hatred and anti-Semitism.”
“You see their voice being heard, but you’re not hearing the middle, you’re not hearing the voice of people,” he remarks, adding that a similar thing happened with the conflicts in Iraq and Syria.
When Westen asks Jones how one can help to effect a potential ceasefire, Jones points to a petition at ceasefirenow.org and mentions a LifeFunder, similar to the one that was started for the VPP’s work in Afghanistan.
Describing the VPP’s work in Gaza, he says that it has a queue and works by triage, seeking to help the most vulnerable and severely wounded get out of Gaza as quickly as possible. The group is also looking to get supplies into Gaza and reunite and care for families once it helps them get into Egypt.
Turning his attention to the Israeli people, Jones says that they are “quite commendable.” He tells Westen that many former IDF soldiers have warned that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) has increased the number of civilian casualties. He also says that protests in Israel against the country’s government and its actions are “massive.”
Finally, he states that the VPP does not want its stand with the people of Gaza to foment anti-Semitism or “Jew-hatred,” but at the same time it does not want the fear of criticism to silence the group into what he calls an “anti-Arab prejudice.”
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“The idea that a Jewish student walking across Harvard Yard has to be accosted by a mob, because an American student who’s Jewish gets accosted by a mob as he’s walking across a college campus, is absolutely shameful, and it’s despicable,” states Jones.
“But at the same time, it is shameful and despicable that we are indifferent to the sufferings of the people of Gaza, and why?” he asks. “Why are we indifferent? Is it because they’re Arab? Is it because they’re predominantly Muslim? What is it that has silenced us? But I will tell you this: as a Catholic, with a Catholic apostolate, the Vulnerable People Project, our mission is to stand with the most vulnerable people in the world when the world is silent.”
Maintaining that Israelis and Gazans, as well as Jewish-Americans and Arab-Americans, should not be held responsible for the actions of the Netanyahu regime or Hamas, Jones states that the mission of the Catholic is to love God and one’s neighbor and share the Gospel, but also to stand at the foot of the Cross, “to stand with the vulnerable when the world has abandoned them.” While this is a challenge, the humanitarian continues, it “exemplifies the truth and dignity and beauty of the human person that Jesus Christ made known to the world.”
“We want a humane, beautiful world,” explains Jones. “We want to leave to our children a culture of life and a civilization of love, but we cannot do that by turning a blind eye to the suffering of the people of Gaza.”
“As Catholics, if the rest of the world gets swept away by tribalism or prejudice, let them,” he continues.
“But what I will do is I’ll stand with the vulnerable. … I’m not checking their baptismal records, I’m not asking their ethnicity, but when I see women and children suffering, families suffering, well, the apostolate of the Vulnerable People Project is to stand with them, and that’s what I believe that we as Catholics are called to do. But we also have to be the leaders in doing it in a way that does not foment tribalism, bigotry, or hatred.”
Help evacuate suffering Christians in Gaza: LifeFunder
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