Palestinian Territories

#36 - Palestinian Territories

Rank: 36 Score: 48/100

Leader: President Mahmoud Abbas Government: Interim administration

Main Religion: Islam Population: 4.2 million (40,000 Christians)

*Representative photo used to protect identity.

An attack on a Christian school in Gaza has created fear among the strip's tiny religious minority, a Palestinian Christian said.

Armed assailants broke into the El-Manara school in Gaza City's Zaitoon Quarter. The attackers tied down two school guards and beat them before stealing a bus belonging to the Palestinian Bible Society.

"It created a lot of fear, and some people are terrified," he said.

The government's apparent inability to find and prosecute the instigators of previous attacks was a legitimate cause for fear, he said. Recently, the manager of Gaza's Bible Society bookshop, Rami Ayyad, was kidnapped and killed. According to Ayyad's widow, police initially told her family that they had arrested the killer but changed their story a week later and denied having anyone in custody.


"We don't feel safe. There's no security here," the official told The Associated Press (AP) on May 16, noting that police had not arrested the perpetrators of previous attacks against Christians.

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