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This is Diaa Ostaz, a journalist based in Gaza, and I really would love to tell you about my experience when I covered Easter in Gaza after two years of war. I visited the church for two days, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
So, in the Holy Family Church, the sound of bells has returned, not as in any ordinary year, but as a quiet sign that life somehow is still moving forward.
This is the first Easter in Gaza after two years of war. People were not only celebrating, they were trying to reclaim something they had lost.
On Good Friday, everything felt heavy. The prayers were slow and the voices low, and the faces carried a kind of exhaustion that words cannot fully describe. The Way of the Cross was not just a ritual, it felt real, deeply lived.
But the next day, Holy Saturday, something shifted. Women wore their most beautiful clothes, and men exchanged quiet smiles.
And the children, the children changed everything. They ran, they laughed and they played as if they were making up for two long years of fear. And still the sound of war was not far away. Explosions could be heard in the distance: a moment to fear, then life slowly continues.
But inside the church, another sound rose above everything. “Our Father, who art in heaven,” a prayer steady and unshaken.
During my coverage, I met many, many people, but one moment stayed with me: when a woman named Lina Masoud stood, quietly lighting a candle. She raised her hands and prayed, asking God to bring light into her life, just like the small flame in front of her. Then she looked at me, smiled and said, “I wish the same for you.”
It was a really, really great moment. So, in that moment I realized that light was not only in the candle; it was in the people themselves. Despite the loss and despite the pain, something here still holds on to life.
In Gaza, Easter is more than a religious celebration. It’s a way of standing up again, of holding on to hope and believing that tomorrow may be better. And, maybe in the end, the children understood this best because, despite everything, they were still laughing.
Read more of Mr. Ostaz’s reporting on the celebration: In Gaza, Hope at Easter.