When Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa spoke in English, Monday, December 25, shortly after midnight, the crowd gathered in the Church of the Nativity, in the center of Bethlehem, applauded : “My thoughts go out to all, without distinction, Palestinians and Israelis, to all those affected by this war, to all those who are grieving, who cry and who are waiting for a sign of closeness and warmth. » In his traditional Christmas homily, with a political tone, the representative of the Catholic Church evokes the “sound of weapons”THE “crying” children, and especially Gaza and its two million inhabitants who suffer violence “incomprehensible”.
This year, the prelate was unable to spend, as usual, a few days with the thousand Christians in the landlocked Palestinian territory, because of the massive bombings by the Israeli army carried out for almost three months in retaliation for the Hamas attack on October 7. Translated into Arabic, the cleric asks world leaders to support the end of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories: “We don’t want a ceasefirehe insists. We want an end to all hostilities. »
In Rome, Pope Francis also mentioned the situation in the Palestinian territories. “Our heart this evening is in Bethlehem”he declared during Christmas mass, denouncing the “losing logic of war”. The day before, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem had spoken by telephone with Emmanuel Macron, who told him of his “ serious concern » for Christians in the Gaza Strip. The French president also offered his condolences for the death of a mother and her daughter, killed by an Israeli sniper in front of a Gazan church on December 16.
In Bethlehem, Christmas took a political turn. In response to Israeli army bombings which killed more than 20,000 people and tensions in the West Bank which cost the lives of some 300 Palestinians, Christmas festivities in the city of Bethlehem were canceled by around thirty religious leaders . Instead, in addition to the religious ceremonies organized in all places of worship in the city, the municipality of Bethlehem inaugurated, on December 23, the sculpture Nativity in the Rubble (“Nativity under the Rubble”) by Tariq Salsa. In fiberglass, the local artist represents the Virgin Mary holding Jesus “in the manner of the martyrs”Joseph, and the wise men wearing a shroud.
In his speech given at the Center for Peace, Hanna Hanania, the mayor of Bethlehem, quotes the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) and compares the State of Israel to King Herod who, after the birth of Jesus, ordered according to the Gospel the murder of all the young children of Bethlehem to protect his power: “The occupation government, worried for its throne, kills and deports [les Palestiniens]. »
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