Palestinian Christian communities, concentrated in Bethlehem, Ramallah, Beit Sahour and parts of Jerusalem, have experienced substantial decline over the past century, falling from a much larger share of the population under the British Mandate to a small minority today, a trend Christian leaders attribute variously to broader economic emigration pressures affecting all Palestinians and, more specifically, to restrictions on movement, land access and permits under Israeli occupation, alongside, in Gaza, a small and further shrinking Christian community affected by conflict and the Islamist governance of Hamas since 2007.
Jerusalem's status remains the single most contested religious and political question in the conflict, with Palestinians and the wider Muslim and Christian world regarding East Jerusalem, including the Old City's holy sites, as the intended capital of a future Palestinian state, a position at odds with Israeli sovereignty claims over the unified city. The Gaza war that began after the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military campaign has caused a humanitarian catastrophe and severely damaged religious sites in Gaza, including historic mosques and churches, while displacing the large majority of the strip's population.