The killing of a well-known Palestinian Christian activist and bookstore manager on a Gaza City street on Sunday spread even more fear through the Christian community. The Christians who live there were already worried and insecure about their condition and safety since the Islamic Hamas seized control last summer.

The Christian was Rami Khader Ayyad, the 32-year-old director of Gaza's only Christian bookstore. When his body was found it had a visible gunshot wound to the head, and according to an official at Gaza's Shifa Hospital, he was also stabbed several times. His unusual absence was noted since Saturday afternoon.

He had received numerous death threats from anonymous persons who were disturbed by his alleged missionary work, an unusual thing among Gaza's Christians. The bookstore Ayyad had managed was burned in April and the Islamic extremists are suspected. The bookstore was associated with a Christian group called the Palestinian Bible Society, thus becoming a target of the extremists.

"We feel Rami was killed for his Christian faith," said Simon Azazian, a spokesman at the Bible Society's head office in Jerusalem.

The Gaza Christian community contains about 3,200 people and is surrounded by almost 1.4 million Muslims. The Christians have had a tough time growing especially since Hamas took control of the coastal strip in June.

During the takeover, when Hamas routed the Fatah secular movement, a Roman Catholic convent and the neighboring school were looted by delinquents. The crosses were breached and the face of a ceramic Jesus was smashed.

After the threats intensified, and he reportedly was followed by a car with no license plates on Friday, Ayyad was abducted on Saturday. He called his family to tell them he would be freed in the evening, but the abductors had other plans and he was found dead next morning.  

Ayyad is survived by two young children and a pregnant wife.