Israel’s attack on Qatar is “very serious news”, Pope Leo said, as he confirmed he had not been able to contact the Holy Family parish in Gaza. Source: The Tablet.
“We don’t know where the situation is headed,” the Pope told reporters as he left Castel Gandolfo for the Vatican. “It’s always serious. We must pray a lot and keep working, searching, insisting on peace.”
The Israel Defence Forces confirmed it conducted the strike on a residential area of Doha, targeting “the senior leadership of the Hamas terrorist organisation”, reportedly including its chief negotiator in ceasefire talks.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he ordered the attack in response to recent Hamas attacks in Gaza and Jerusalem, including a shooting at a Jerusalem bus stop on Monday in which six people died.
The IDF has continued its offensive in Gaza City this week, issuing evacuation orders on leaflets yesterday.
Asked about the safety of the Holy Family parish in Gaza, Pope Leo said he had “tried to call the parish priest just now” but had heard no news from him. “They were certainly okay before, but after this new order, I’m not sure,” he said.
The clergy and nuns in Gaza’s Catholic and Orthodox parishes said last month that they would not leave the territory despite evacuation orders.
The Holy Family Church held a Mass for the feast of St Teresa of Calcutta on Friday with the sisters of the Missionaries of Charity who run a care facility in the parish compound.
Pope Leo had discussed “the tragic situation in Gaza” and the need for a ceasefire there with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog during an audience at the Vatican last week.
Speaking to the Italian weekly Toscana Oggi last week, Fr Ibrahim Faltas OFM of the Custody of the Holy Land warned that the Christian population was under threat both from the war in Gaza and from worsening conditions in the West Bank.
He said that 185 Christian families had left Bethlehem, which he described as “an open-air prison” with checkpoints restricting livelihoods, such that “if things continue like this, there will truly be no Christians left”.
In Gaza, Fr Faltas said, “people continue to die, from hunger, thirst, and the heat”, asking: “Where is the international community? Where are human rights?”
FULL STORY
‘We must pray’ says Leo after Israel strikes Qatar (By Patrick Hudson and Ellen Teague, The Tablet)
