Israeli strikes called disproportionate

Monday, May 17th, 2021

The homes of Christian families have been hit during the Israeli air force raids on the Gaza Strip, according to the Patriarchal Vicar for Jerusalem.

Bishop Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, Bishop Emeritus of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, said the convent and the nursery school of the Sisters of the Rosary were also damaged.

Marcuzzo stated that Israel’s response to Hamas missiles has been disproportionate. More than 100 of the casualties in Gaza have been women and children, he claimed.

“Once again, the famous ‘smart bombs’ harm everyone. They are not able to distinguish between military targets and the civilian population,” he remarked.

“At the bottom of everything,” the Patriarchal Vicar recalls “there is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has lasted for decades. And above all there is the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories.”

“Until the causes that are at the root of the conflict are addressed and resolved, it will only take a spark for everything to explode again. We have already seen this with the first and second Intifada.”

The current unleashing of violence – Bishop Marcuzzo remarks – is due to the accumulation of a series of “unfortunate circumstances” that have rekindled the tension around Jerusalem. The real knot of the conflict is the expropriation of Palestinian homes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

Pope Francis has appealed “in the name of God” for calm in the Holy Land, after seven days of fighting that has left scores of people dead and hundreds more wounded.

The deaths of dozens of children among them are particularly “terrible and unacceptable,” the Pope said. “Their death is a sign that people do not want to build the future, but to destroy it.”

He warned that the ongoing violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip risks degenerating “into a spiral of death and destruction.” The wounds to “fraternity and peaceful coexistence” will be difficult to heal without an immediate return to dialogue.

The Pope urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders “to stop the clamour of arms and to walk the path of peace, with the help of the international community.”