by Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone Institute
The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of June 2025.
The Muslim Slaughter of Christians
Syria: On Sunday, June 22, a gun and suicide bomb attack inside a church in Damascus murdered 25 Christians and wounded nearly 70. At least two armed Muslim men entered the Mar Elyas Greek Orthodox Church during mass, when it was packed with some 350 worshippers, and indiscriminately opened fire before one of them detonated an explosive belt inside the sanctuary. : “He started shooting wildly, then blew himself up,” Eyewitnesses described the scene. “The blast threw bodies everywhere — blood, broken glass, screams. I thought it was the end of the world,” one survivor said. Another worshipper, barely escaping with her life, recalled, “We tried to run but the smoke and dust made it impossible. People were crying and praying for mercy. The killer shouted, ‘You all deserve death!’ It was a message of hate aimed straight at us.” Video footage shows the church interior destroyed — pews splintered, walls shattered, and the floor slick with blood. Photos showed charred and blood-splattered floors, with shrapnel peppering the church walls. “I have never seen such devastation in a place of worship,” a volunteer rescuer related. “When we got to the church, we found the doorway filled with body parts,” another relief helper said.
The regime of Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa — formerly the head of the jihadist faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — initially attributed the assault to ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Yet two days later, a lesser-known group, Saraya Ansar al-Sunna — an offshoot of al-Sharaa’s very own organization — claimed responsibility. Some Muslims in Syria celebrated the carnage.
One ISIS supporter, Al-Wa’eli, shared an image of a jihadist with the caption, “If you do not rejoice over this action… you do not have any [faith].” Quoting Islamic justifications, he insisted, “We were commanded [by Allah] to kill you,” referring to Christians. The Bariqah (“Blessing”) News Agency further announced that ISIS will strike Christians “whenever and wherever we want” They added: “We act based on clear proof from our Lord.”
“We come here to pray for peace,” one elderly churchgoer responded to so much hate, “but now we live in fear. How can we worship when death stalks us even inside the church?” Other survivors said: “They came to kill us because we believe.”