The speech delivered by Mona Abuamara, Ambassador of Palestine in Italy and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Agencies, at the exhibition “Christ Died in Gaza” by Gianluca Costantini at St. Paul’s Within the Walls in Rome.
I want to start by thanking you — the organizers, the artists, and every person who chose to be here today — for standing in solidarity with a people whose suffering the world has too often decided not to see.
We meet today in the sacred space of a church, under an image that carries a truth too heavy and too urgent to ignore
Christ was born in Bethlehem, and Christ died in Gaza.
These words are not poetry.
They are a mirror — reflecting an unbroken line between the birthplace of hope and the crucifixion of innocence. Palestine
In Palestine, a child’s cry became a message of peace for humanity, and it is in Palestine where today children cry in darkness, under rubble, under siege, under starvation.
The Palestinian cause is not religious, but today we are reminded of a truth that transcends politics, a truth that all religions reflect.
Faith demands moral clarity.
Faith demands courage.
Faith demands that we stand with the oppressed, not with the powerful who oppress them.
What is happening in Gaza today is not a tragedy of nature.
It is a deliberate, systematic destruction of life.
A place where children die, not only from bombs that the adults in their lives can’t protect them from, no matter how hard they try, but from hunger and dehydration, not because food and water do not exist, but because they are blocked.
And from infections that could have been treated. Not because medicine is absent, but because it is forbidden;
From wounds that could have been healed.
From a world that looked at their suffering and negotiated how little help could be allowed in.
And so, when we see the image of Mary holding a starving child, we are forced to confront a painful question:
Why did the world allow Christ to die in Gaza!!!
This is not theology.
This is the conscience of the world asking:
Why has a people’s suffering been made invisible?
Why has their pain been so easily dismissed?
Why has their right to life been treated as negotiable?
Bethlehem gave the world a message of peace, dignity, and compassion.
Gaza asks the world whether it still believes in those values.
Yet even under the ruins, the people of Gaza have not lost their humanity.
Doctors, nurses, and volunteers of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society continue to serve, even as they bury their own families.
They carry the wounded on their backs.
They operate without anesthesia.
They sacrifice their lives so others may live.
Supporting them today is an affirmation of our shared humanity — an act of faith in action.
The message of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is simple:
Palestinian people are not seeking revenge or privilege.
We are seeking what every nation on earth is entitled to:
Freedom, dignity, and justice.
Dismantle.
The walls that imprison Gaza.
The walls that fragment the West Bank.
The walls around homes were destroyed.
The walls around memory and history.
The walls of silence.
And so today, in this place of faith and art and conscience, I ask you to help us break those walls.
Solidarity with Palestine is not a political position.
It is a moral position.
It is the belief that every human life is sacred, every child’s life is holy — that Christ’s message started in Bethlehem, but must be defended in Gaza.
The world cannot celebrate the birth in Bethlehem while ignoring the death in Gaza.
It cannot praise the message of peace while remaining silent before genocide.
It cannot speak of dignity while allowing starvation, displacement, and destruction to continue.
Tonight, your presence sends a message that transcends borders:
The children of Gaza are not forgotten.
The mothers of Gaza are not alone.
The people of Palestine are not abandoned.
Christ was born in Bethlehem to remind humanity of its conscience.
Christ died in Gaza to remind us what happens when conscience is lost.
May we honour both truths by refusing silence, by confronting injustice, and by defending the sanctity of every human life.
I want to leave you with this.
To stand with Palestine is not to stand against anyone. It is to stand with humanity.
On behalf of the Palestinian people, I thank you for your courage, your compassion, and your unwavering solidarity.
May your voices continue to be a light where darkness has fallen.
