As continued bombardment between Israel and Iran entered its fifth day, Catholic clergy in the Middle East called for peace and an end to further bloodshed in the Holy Land and the region. Source: OSV News.
“It seems like we have fallen into a new nightmare,” Franciscan Father Francesco Patton, custos of the Holy Land, told Vatican news on Monday.
“First, we saw the destruction caused by the war in the surrounding territories; now we see it in the heart of the Holy Land.”
Yesterday, Israeli tanks fired into a crowd trying to get aid from trucks in Gaza, killing at least 59 people, according to medics, as reported by Reuters.
It was “one of the bloodiest incidents yet in mounting violence as desperate residents struggle for food,” the agency said.
Fr Gabriel Romanelli, pastor of Holy Family Church, the only Catholic parish in the Gaza Strip, warned that the suffering of the Palestinians in the enclave is being forgotten.
According to another report on Monday by French newspaper Le Monde, the Gaza civil defence agency said Israeli soldiers opened fire and killed 20 people waiting to collect food at an aid distribution site in Rafah. The Israeli military said it was investigating the incident, Le Monde reported.
“Imagine a city like Rome (which has a population slightly larger than that of Gaza), whose inhabitants are forced to collect food in three or four distribution points located in different areas, with all that this entails in terms of hardship and danger. What we see today in Gaza is shameful,” Father Romanelli told SIR, the news agency of the Italian bishops’ conference.
On June 13, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against Iran and said the country’s nuclear ambitions posed an “existential threat”.
“Iran is only moments away from a nuclear weapon. The threat posed by Iran is imminent and Israel has no choice but remove it before it is too late,” Israel’s embassy to the Holy See said in a statement on June 13.
Not long after Israel launched its attack, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which is led by Italian Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, tweeted a prayer for peace on its X account.
“We lift our weary hearts to you, Lord, longing for your light amid the shadows of fear and unrest,” the prayer read. “Teach us to be peacemakers.”
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” and warned that US patience is wearing thin but said there was no intention to kill Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for now, SBS News reports.
FULL STORY
As ‘new nightmare’ unfolds between Israel and Iran, ‘never-ending tragedy’ in Gaza continues (OSV News)
Trump demands Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, warns US patience is wearing thin (SBS News)
