‘We will not vanish’

New York City, United States – A metallic blur streaked past Khader Khalilia’s ear. The bullet, so close he could hear it, smashed into a painting of Romeo and Juliet on the wall behind him.

As more shots rang out, Khalilia and his family fell to the floor of their house in Beit Jala, just outside Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. Khalilia draped his body over his younger brother Elios to shield him. They were caught in the crossfire between the Israeli military and a Palestinian resistance group.

“I was cursing, praying at the same time,” said Khalilia, recalling that afternoon in 2003, when he was 23 and still a college student. “Then I said to myself, if we ever survive, I will go and serve you, Lord.”

It was a vow he would follow through with. Last year, Pastor Khalilia marked one decade leading Redeemer-St John’s Lutheran Church in Dyker Heights, a neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York.

But over the last nine months, Israel’s war on Gaza has thrown into relief Khalilia’s identity as a Palestinian pastor. He is one of the few Palestinian faith leaders in New York City — and as far as he knows, the only one to lead a Christian church.

That visibility has demanded Khalilia become an ambassador of sorts, dispelling misconceptions and educating New Yorkers about what it means to be Palestinian.

Some of the people he meets view his very identity — as a Palestinian Christian — to be a contradiction: They think all Palestinians are Muslim.

“When I tell them I'm a Palestinian American, Christian Lutheran pastor, they get so confused. But actually, it's not confusing,” Khalilia said.

An inherent part of his life and job is dislodging hurtful ideas about Palestinian people, an Arab ethnic group that spans multiple religions, including Christianity, Islam and the Druze faith.

Khalilia is sometimes asked, “When did you convert to Christianity?” His reply is the same every time.

“I always tell them, ‘On the day of Pentecost, 2,000 years ago.’ Two thousand years ago, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Palestine.” Christianity, as he points out, has its roots in his homeland.

But the war in Gaza has inflamed divisions in his adopted country, the US, including through the rise of anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim sentiment.

The war began on October 7, when the Palestinian group Hamas attacked southern Israel. An estimated 1,139 people were killed, and in response, Israel launched a military offensive and siege against the Gaza Strip.

In the months since, the Israeli military has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians in Gaza, with the United Nations warning of famine and human rights abuses.

The US has historically been a firm ally of Israel, and that, in turn, has led to debate about the country’s role in Israel’s war.

Some American Christians — particularly evangelicals — identify with the Israeli nationalist cause, and advocates fear these attitudes have contributed to anti-Palestinian backlash.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations reported 3,578 complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate in the first three months of the war alone.

And in March, the Pew Research Center found that, while 50 percent of Americans expressed a “favourable” opinion of Palestinians, 41 percent had an “unfavourable” view.

When white evangelical Protestants and Republicans were taken in isolation, that number was even higher: In both groups, 58 percent felt unfavourably towards Palestinians.

Pastor Khalilia, however, has had a different experience. His congregation, he explained, has been there for him during the war, reaching out with "phone calls, text messages” and “holding me in their prayers”.

"They became my pastor," Khalilia said of his parishioners. "They were trying to care for me as well."

When he moved to the US in 2005, Dyker Heights — a historically Scandinavian and Italian neighbourhood, lined with single-family houses — was his first home. He still remembers the moment he first stepped into Redeemer-St John’s.

“I fell in love with this sanctuary and I prayed, 'God, I would love to be the pastor at this congregation,'” he said.

Since becoming the church's pastor in 2013, Khalilia said he presides over an older, largely white congregation that leans conservative. Some have confided their support for Republican leader Donald Trump, a former president and current candidate in the 2024 presidential election.

“It's a challenge to hear it, to be honest with you,” said Khalilia, the dark, carefully trimmed stubble on his chin flecked with white hairs. “But at the same time, I have to listen and just be present in their life.”

Still, congregants approach Khalilia freely to request prayer and advice, or to express their opinions. And in return, they listen as Khalilia shares his experiences as a Palestinian American.

“It's a mutual relationship,” he explained. "I see this as a joy, being their pastor, preaching, teaching, administering the sacraments, breaking bread with them — not only on Sunday morning, but sometimes we go out to brunch.”

That close relationship has offered his parishioners insight into the war they might not otherwise have. Tensions from the war in Gaza, for example, have spilled into Khalilia’s childhood home in the occupied West Bank.

Illegal Israeli settlements there have grown. Raids by Israeli forces and attacks by hardline settlers have turned deadly. And ripples of that violence have found their way to Khalilia in Brooklyn.

After travelling abroad for their honeymoon, one of Khalilia’s brothers and his new wife were recently barred from reentering the occupied West Bank. In November, they were forced to come to New York, moving into Khalilia’s house alongside their parents, before relocating to Staten Island.

Parishioner Dorothy Fyfe, who has known Khalilia for years, said she was touched by the family’s story.

“In one way, they're lucky. They're not in the midst of fighting, but how heartbreaking it is not to be able to go back home when you want to, because of the devastation?” Fyfe said.

In the past, Khalilia has also led group trips to the occupied West Bank and Israel at the urging of parishioners, with the aim of “walking where Jesus walked”. But those trips have paused amid the current violence: The last one happened in January 2023.

While the trips included visits to historical churches and sites from the Bible, Khalilia said they also offered parishioners a chance to see the struggle woven into everyday Palestinian life.

“People were crying,” Khalilia said, describing travellers’ shock at the conditions Palestinians faced.

Some human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, have equated Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to apartheid, a form of systemic discrimination, violence and displacement.

Realising that US taxes are linked to the Israeli occupation left many of the travellers feeling “blindsided”, Khalilia added.

Karl and Owen — who asked that their last names be withheld, in order to speak freely — recently became the first same-sex couple to marry at Redeemer-St John’s. They joined Khalilia on one of his trips last year.

“We saw a kid getting searched at a checkpoint,” said Owen, referring to manned barriers erected by the Israeli military to restrict Palestinian movement in and around the West Bank.

The couple described driving by Israeli settlements and visiting a Palestinian children’s hospital. There, they learned that Palestinian parents are sometimes denied permits to accompany their ill or injured kids, if they are being treated in Israeli facilities.

“It seems mean, right? Just like, why would you do that?” Karl asked.

Fyfe explained that, when congregants return from the trips with Khalilia, they talk about what they saw.

“We do have discussions about it,” said Fyfe. But, she added, Khalilia isn’t trying to sway the group towards any particular view. “He’s not trying to convince people one way or the other. It's just information.”

After Khalilia preaches every Sunday, he returns home to his two daughters, who are eight and four years old. Two months before the October 7 attack and the start of the war, Khalilia and his wife took the girls to the occupied West Bank and Israel.

“My two brothers got married. They were the flower girls at both weddings, one week apart. I took them to Jerusalem, walking the Old City, drinking pomegranate juice. They were like, ‘Oh, that's cool, Daddy.’ They’re eating sweet knafeh,” he said, referring to a traditional pastry made with shredded dough.

“And then the war started.”

Back in the US, images of aerial bombings, starving children and broken bodies began to fill the airwaves and newspapers, showing the devastation unfolding in Gaza.

While watching the news one evening on TV, Khalilia’s eight-year-old asked, "When we go back home to Palestine, are they going to do the same thing to us?”

Khalilia turned off the TV and comforted her as best as he could. “I just hugged her and I said, ‘No, they are not going to do this to us.’"

When asked what he wishes people understood about where he comes from, Khalilia sat back in his chair and sighed.

“We deserve life. We want life. We want freedom. We are not animals or sub-humans,” he said.

“And we are not terrorists. We are fighting for a noble cause, to liberate Palestine from the occupation. We want to live side by side with the Israelis, but we will not vanish.”