GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - A prominent Palestinian Christian activist was found dead on a Gaza City street Sunday, sending a shudder of fear through a tiny Christian community feeling increasingly insecure since the Islamic Hamas seized control last summer
The body of Rami Khader Ayyad, the 32-year-old director of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, bore a visible gunshot wound to the head, and an official at Gaza's Shifa Hospital said he was also stabbed numerous times. Ayyad had been missing since Saturday afternoon.
Ayyad regularly received anonymous death threats from angry people who accused him of missionary work, a rarity among Gaza's Christians. His store, which is associated with a Christian group called the Palestinian Bible Society, was firebombed in April.
Ayyad left two young children and a pregnant wife.
Is there any doubt that there can be no peace with the religion of peace? Mr. Ayyad was one of 3200 Christians living among 1,400,000 Muslims. It was just a matter of time before someone acted out one of the death threats. Can there ever be peaceful co-existence with followers of a faith that is so intolerant and also feels it is an act of spirituality to murder an infidel?
