This week, during an interview on Sem Censura, a program broadcast by TV Brasil, Brazil’s state-owned television network, journalist Rodrigo Alvarez revealed that he had received death threats from Hamas and was ultimately forced to leave his position as an international correspondent in Jerusalem in 2016.

The reason? Alvarez, who had been covering the Middle East since 2013 for TV Globo, Brazil’s largest television network, traveled to the Gaza Strip to produce a special report on the persecution of Christians in the Palestinian enclave.

At the time, Alvarez was accompanied by Father Fábio de Melo, one of Brazil’s most prominent Catholic priests, with millions of followers on social media. Together, they visited Father Mário da Silva, a Brazilian priest serving at the Holy Family Church, the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip.

This is the same church that was accidentally struck by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in July 2025, during the current war against Hamas, prompting an Israeli apology. It is also the community that Pope Francis called almost every day until his death during the war that followed the October 7, 2023 massacre.

In the........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)