By Chika Abanobi

 #GAZA

With about 41,000 Palestinians dead from incessant Israeli bombings, many of them women and children, with more than 90,000 wounded, some, critical, Gaza Strip, and West Bank, have suffered immense human and infrastructural destructions which the inhabitants may take years to recover from.

But in the Old Testament of the Bible, we remember Gaza, as one of the places with names that have endured the test of time. It was the town where Samson, a bouncer-like Jewish figure with an intimidating body build was once hedged in by the Philistines who sought to arrest or kill him. He probably resembled Moshe Weinberg, wrestling coach, or Yossef Romano, weightlifter – the Israeli athletes killed in the 1972 Munich Olympics by terrorists.

Samson and Kan Younis

 Surprisingly, before their very eyes, Samson rose up early in the morning and went away with the city gates (Judges 16:1-3). Gaza is also the place where he was imprisoned after his capture through the deceptive, counterintelligence operations of Delilah. She was used as a cat’s paw by her Philistine kinsmen to fret out secret information from Samson, her alleged lover. Samson eventually died there along with 3,000 Philistine spectators made up of prominent citizens of the town. They all died when Samson pulled down the amphitheatre structure (Judges 16:21-30).

In the New Testament, the area is remembered as the place where Philip preached to the Ethiopian Eunuch who was returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (Acts 8:26-40). Interestingly, it was for the sake of pilgrims or travelers like the Ethiopian Eunuch that Emir Younis (an Arabic name that means “Jonah” in English) ibn Abdallah al-nuruzi al-Dawadar of the Mamluk Empire, built the Khan Younis (meaning “House of Rest built by or belonging to Younis”), between 1387 and 1388. The purpose was to enable travelers/pilgrims have a place to rest and refresh themselves while on long journeys.

Today, Khan Younis is remembered as the birthplace of Yahya Sinwar, the wiry military/political leader of Hamas. The man who spent 22 years in an Israeli jail during which he learnt how to speak and write the Hebrew language, like a native speaker, is said to be as slippery as eel. He has not been sighted on earth’s surface, so goes the story, since the war began, a year ago. Instead, he has lived in underground bunkers and has been seen moving from tunnel to tunnel to evade capture or assassination. He is said to be distrustful of everyone, including himself!

Truth about modern Biblical places

Despite Biblical memories of the city it evokes, Bible scholars see the present Gaza, and indeed, any other Biblical city mentioned in the news, in recent times, as emergent cities from the ruins of their ancient sites. It is like the modern city of Ibadan from the old Ibadan or modern Ilorin from the ancient city of Ilorin or modern Benin City, from the old Benin.

#WEST BANK (JUDEA AND SAMARIA)

This is one of the areas featured, oftentimes, in the news in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. But not as Judea and Samaria, a name it was known with, in Bible days (Acts 1:8). So, how did it change its name to West Bank?

The area which has a land mass of about 5,640 square kilometers (2, 180 square miles), an estimated population of 2,747, 943 Palestinians (most of who live in refugee camps), and over 670,000 Israeli settlers, between 1948 and 1967 when it was captured by Israel in the Six-Day War, used to be under the political administration of Jordan.

 Not only was it regarded as part of the Jordanian nation, its Palestinian-Arab population was granted full citizenship and half of their parliamentary seats.  It was within those years that its original nomenclature “Judea and Samaria” was changed to West Bank.

It happened in 1950 when Jordan renamed the area west of the Jordan River as “West Bank” and east as “East Bank.” Since then, that’s the name the place has continued to bear.

But in 1988, Jordan revoked the citizenship of Palestinians as Jordanians. It also excised the West Bank area from the country, owing to fears that the Palestinians’ ever-growing population might, one day outnumber Jordanians, and turn them into second-class citizens in their own country.

West Bank under Israel, Palestinian rules

With Jordan taking its hands off, the West Bank came under the full military rule of Israel. This was how the struggles for political freedom began, with Yasser Arafat and his Fatah/PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) leading the way. Through some binding United Nations resolutions which harped on the need for Israel to grant some measure of political autonomy to Palestinians while the issue of two-state creation continues to be discussed, the West Bank and Gaza were handed over to Palestinians.

The agreement known as the Oslo Accords also enjoined Palestinians not to engage in any armed attack against Israel. For sometime under Arafat, that arrangement appeared to bring peace between the two parties. There were occasional skirmishes, though, as a result of orthodox Jewish settlers’ determination to continue to build settlements in areas they regard as ancestral lands. It presented some Israeli politicians who needed some tact to handle such emotive issue, with dilemma. This is because if they don’t handle it with some caution, it might boomerang and cause them votes, and, ultimately, political power.

How and why Hamas became a breakaway faction

But in 2007, members of Palestinians called Hamas felt that waiting for power to be served a la carte, through seemingly slow, endless negotiations, while Jewish settlers continue to build more settlements on their lands, is a long walk to freedom.

As far as they are concerned, power/freedom was better captured by violent armed struggles against the oppressor! These ideological differences not only caused a split between Fatah and Hamas, but it also caused the Palestinian National Authority to lose the election in Gaza, some years later.

This was how the Yahya Sinwar-led Hamas came to power in Gaza, while the Mahmoud Abbas-led Palestinian Authority continued to call the shots in the West Bank. But then that has not stopped some orthodox religious Jews from seeing West Bank as part of “Eretz Israel” (Land of Israel).

With the unprovoked attack of Hamas on October 7, last year, with the militants aggressively building more underground tunnels and smuggling and stockpiling war weapons with which they hope to wipe out the state of Israel, like the Nazis, under Adolf Hitler tried to do, many years ago, with Hezbollah doing the same in Lebanon before moles within revealed their plans, some keen observers of the Middle East politics believe that it might be difficult convincing Israel again to leave their security in the hands of people who are bent on destroying them. For that, it might not be willing to actively support the creation of two states, side-by-side or too close to each other.

Meanwhile, news reports coming out of the West Bank, after the October 7 attack, say that Israeli incursions into the place have killed about 400 Palestinians, the majority of them, Hamas operatives.

#JERUSALEM

Jerusalem which today lies between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea or between the West Bank and Israel, on a plateau point where it stands at a crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa, used to belong to Jebusites (Judges 1:21) in the Old Testament days.

The name means “City of Peace” although Arabs know the city as Al-Quds meaning “The Holy”, “The Holy Sanctuary” or “The Holy City.” Regarded as one of the oldest cities in the world, it is holy to the three major religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Jerusalem was where the Lord asked His disciples to stay until they were endued with power from on High (Luke 24:49). But today, to experience the power, you don’t need to join pilgrims going to the city on a pilgrimage. Right there where you are, in your room, you can be endued with the Holy Ghost’s power.

Biblical importance and modern status of Jerusalem

Known as the “City of David” (2 Samuel 11:1;1 Chronicles 20:1), it was here that the Maggi (aka The Wisemen), who came in search of then born Baby Jesus first arrived to make enquiries, before they proceeded on their journey, directed to their destination, by the Star they saw in the East (Matthew 2:1-3). Jesus once wept over the spiritual/moral conditions of the city (Matthew 23:37). As He looks at your life today, what does He see?

The status of the city is a continual source of conflict between the Israelis and Arabs, especially the Palestinians. While the Palestinians see and insist on having East Jerusalem, captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War, as the capital of future Palestinian State, the Israelis who have had the western part of Jerusalem in their custody since 1948, see it as their eternal, indivisible capital. The irreconcilable conflict between the two on the status of the city prompted the United Nations to declare Jerusalem an “international city.”

Men, women born in Jerusalem

Tzila (Cela) nee Segal, the mother of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, was born in Jerusalem in 1912. So was Iddo her son, and younger brother to Benjamin. He was born in Jerusalem in 1952. He also had his primary school education there. Although Benjamin was born in Tel Aviv, in 1949, he also had his primary school education in Jerusalem.          

25-year-old Ori Danino, one of the hostages kidnapped at the Nova music festival while driving back to help others escape Hamas attack comes from Jerusalem. But he was later killed while in the captivity of Hamas, along with five others. The young man, the eldest of five siblings, was said to love people and nature and had plans to read electrical engineering in the university, before he was taken hostage on October 7, 2023.

#BETHLEHEM: 

 Christmas festivities used to be marked in a very big way, on Christmas Eve, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. It starts with the lightning up of the big Christmas Tree at the Manger Square close to the Church of Nativity, believed to be the birthplace of Jesus.

It then continues with the chiming of the Christmas Bell, parades by young men and women savouring the joy of the moment, and the sale of Christmas gifts and souvenirs in all the shops around the square. But, for the first time in the long history of the celebration, these features were missing last December because of the tension and feelings of insecurity generated by the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

How the war is affecting Bethlehem.

 Though only Gaza was subjected to intense bombings, last Christmas, Bethlehem, where the Manger Square and Church of Nativity are located, was deserted as a result of constant military raids, and military checkpoints set up to check the inflow into the city. In addition, there were constant patrols by the Palestinian National Authority’s security forces. All these added to the heightening of tension and led to the call-off of celebrations by the authorities.

Tourism which used to account for about 70 percent of the city’s income as visitors come from all over the world to celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem, suffered a severe setback as a result of the war.

Hotels reported a steep drop in bookings. That was how Bethlehem, which means “House of Meat”, “House of Bread/Food” in Arabic and Hebrew languages, was turned into something out of Ben Okri’s novel, The Famished Road.

Instead of the joyous lights and bursts of colour that used to characerise the square during the Christmas season, barbed wire was used to screen off the square. Cold, rainy weather completed the gloomy picture. Yet that was the town that inspired one of the world’s most popular Christmas carols: Long time ago in Bethlehem/

Birthplace of Christ and other Biblical characters

 The birth of Christ on Christmas Eve (Matthew 2:1-10; Luke 2: 1-11) is not the only thing Bethlehem, mentioned 52 times in the Bible, is known for. This is the burial place of Rachel, the second wife of Jacob, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin (Genesis 35:19; 48:7). The fiancée raped to death by some morally debased Benjamites (Judges chapter 19:1-30), leading to a war between Israel and the Benjamites (Judges chapter 20) came from Bethlehem.

The city is also the birthplace of Elimelech, Naomi’s husband and Ruth’s father-in-law (Ruth 1:1-3, 18-22); of Boaz, their kinsman and later Ruth’s second husband (Ruth 2:1-9); of Obed, the grandfather of David; of Jesse, David’s father (Ruth 4:18-22) and of King David himself (1 Samuel 17:12-15; 20:4-6, 27-28).

One interesting fact about the seemingly ceaseless wars between Israel and the Palestinians is, though King David comes from Bethlehem, today a Palestinian town in West Bank, he is the inspiration for the “Star of David” usually seen on the flag of Israel.

This is why the strictly orthodox Jews, known as the Haredi Jews have continued and will continue to regard West Bank, known in the Bible as “Judea and Samaria” as part of Israel, even though the Oslo Accords, have ceded it to Palestinians.

• Abanobi, pioneer staff, Weekend Concord, former Associate Editor, The Sun newspaper, Lagos, and winner of Governor Olusegun Mimiko Prize for Foreign News Reporter of the Year: 2018 Nigeria Media Merit Award (NMMA) is member, Journalists for Christ International Fellowship. All rights reserved. No part of this write-up should be republished without the author’s permission.