The most recent figures from Gaza report a shocking 25,000 dead – 10,000 of whom are children. That’s more than the entire primary and secondary school population of North West Glasgow, where my parish is situated. Let that sink in.

The recent Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph is a special day in the Catholic calendar. It's a day to be grateful for our families, including our faith-families and communities.

Looking at our world, I've been acutely aware of belonging to, and fearing for, our shared human family.

Watching the distressing scenes of families in Gaza, beleaguered and destroyed in the very place where Jesus was born, led me to use my last sermon of 2023 to speak out against this horror.

Years ago, my first tutor at Oxford was a Jewish woman who fled Vienna after the Nazi invasion and escaped the Holocaust. She knew suffering because many of her family did not make it.  

From the time spent with Magda Ungar, I learned such a reverence for the Jewish faith and people, and she also gave me a sense of the horror that her people endured. It's so important to keep that memory alive so that it never, ever happens again.  

Learning from Magda about the Shoah, I took the chance to visit Auschwitz and Majdanek, the national Polish memorial. Carved on the monument above the crematoria there are chilling Polish words: ‘Our fate is a warning to you’. Only weeks into 2024 and I fear we've not heeded that warning. Nor have we learned from the past as we seem not just condemned but almost determined to repeat it.  

The Herald: We know that Hamas must be brought to justice for their terrible atrocities but so too must Netanyahu and the Israeli governmentWe know that Hamas must be brought to justice for their terrible atrocities but so too must Netanyahu and the Israeli government (Image: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)

Magda’s experience often left me wondering, had I lived during that Nazi regime would I have had the courage to stand up and be counted? Would I have had the moral strength of Dietrich Bonhoeffer or the Jesuit, Alfred Delp, to say ‘Not in my name’? When I look at what's happening in the world today, I feel the urgency of that same dilemma. Will I speak up now?  

Martin Niemöller survived the war and wrote his poem, "First they came for the Communists , And I did not speak out..."

Most read: 

Niemöller reminds us it's not enough to be upset by the images coming from Gaza. We need to speak up and decry what’s happening. It’s a moral imperative. It’s even a legal imperative, because in law the person who keeps silent is giving assent. Speaking up means, at the very least, that I will not be complicit in the indiscriminate killing of innocent Palestinians. Not in my name!  

Now I need to confess that I do not understand the historical and cultural intricacies and difficulties that make the tension in the Holy Land so incredibly complicated. We know that Hamas must be brought to justice for their terrible atrocities but so too must Netanyahu and the Israeli government.  

The Herald: A child, wounded in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, arrives for treatment at a treatment centre in Khan YounisA child, wounded in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, arrives for treatment at a treatment centre in Khan Younis

In Gaza there is now famine and disease, people maimed and wounded and 1.9 million displaced and pushed south. Jesus was born in that land, a tiny homeless baby. Pushed aside, he too became a refugee.  I’d say Jesus is closer to the people of Gaza than to our leaders, decision-makers or the self-righteous ideologues.  

There's a beautiful column being published in a national newspaper.  Zaid, a young Palestinian man is reporting every day what it's like. That column has made such an impact on me and here’s how he recorded Christmas Day.  

‘In your country there is Christmas. People are sharing food and presents - hugging each other because they love each other.  It's 9 p.m. here but there is no Christmas today. We are hugging because we are terrified and we are cold. We have no gifts to share except our prayer that we will get out of this alive.’  

So let me ask you the same direct question I ask myself. Will you stand up? Speak out?  Please support SCIAF’s campaign to end the killing. Sign the petition. Sign it now.

Ask your family - ask everybody you know who worries about our human family, our sisters and brothers in Gaza. Let's use SCIAF to make our voices heard. That Gaza will know peace and know it swiftly.  

Fr Jim Lawlor is the parish priest at the The Immaculate Conception, Maryhill. You can read more about and join SCIAF's Cry for Peace here.