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Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church kills two

An Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church killed two people on Thursday, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said, as Israel said it “never targets” religious sites and regretted any harm to civilians.Pope Leo XIV said he was “deeply saddened” by the attack, which came as Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory killed at least 20 people.”With deep sorrow the Latin Patriarchate can now confirm that two persons were killed as a result of an apparent strike by the Israeli army that hit the Holy Family Compound this morning,” it said in a statement.”We pray for the rest of their souls and for the end of this barbaric war. Nothing can justify the targeting of innocent civilians.”Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said “two citizens from the Christian community” were killed in an Israeli strike on the church in Gaza City, with which the late Pope Francis kept regular contact through the war. AFP photographs showed the wounded being treated in a tented area at Gaza City’s Al-Ahli Hospital, also known as the Baptist Hospital, with parish priest Father Gabriel Romanelli with a bandage around his lower leg.Some of the wounded arrived on stretchers, with one man wearing an oxygen mask.The patriarchate, which has jurisdiction for Catholics in Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan and Cyprus, condemned the strike and said it “destroyed large parts of the complex”.”Targeting a holy site currently sheltering approximately 600 displaced persons, the majority of whom are children and 54 with special needs, is a flagrant violation of human dignity and a blatant violation of the sanctity of life and the sanctity of religious sitses, which are supposed to provide a safe haven in times of war,” it said.Israel expressed “deep sorrow” over the damage and civilian casualties, adding that the military was investigating.”Israel never targets churches or religious sites and regrets any harm to a religious site or to uninvolved civilians,” the foreign ministry said on X.- ‘Serious act’ -Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said attacks on civilians in Gaza were “unacceptable” while her Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani called the church attack “a serious act against a Christian place of worship”.Out of the Gaza Strip’s population of more than two million, about 1,000 are Christians. Most of them are Orthodox but according to the Latin Patriarchate, there are about 135 Catholics in the territory.Since the early days of the war which erupted in October 2023, members of the Catholic community have been sheltering at the Holy Family Compound in Gaza City, where some Orthodox Christians have also found refuge.Pope Francis repeatedly called for an end to the war and in his final Easter message, a day before his death on April 21, he condemned the “deplorable humanitarian situation” in the Palestinian territory.- ‘Totally unacceptable’ -Monsignor Pascal Gollnisch, the head of Catholic charity l’Oeuvre d’Orient, told AFP the raid was “totally unacceptable”.”It is a place of worship. It is a Catholic church known for its peaceful attitude, for being a peacemaker. These are people who are at the service of the population,” he said.”There was no strategic objective, there were no jihadists in this church. There were families, there were civilians. This is totally unacceptable and we condemn in the strongest possible terms this attitude on the part of Israel.”More than 21 months of war have created dire humanitarian conditions for Gaza’s population, displacing most residents at least once and triggering severe shortages of food and other essentials.The war was triggered by a Hamas attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 58,573 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency and other parties.burs-acc/phz/kir

Syria troops quit Druze heartland leaving bodies on streets

Syrian troops pulled out of the Druze heartland province of Sweida Thursday on orders from the Islamist-led government, leaving bodies strewn on the street, AFP journalists reported from the provincial capital.The southern province has been gripped by deadly sectarian bloodshed since Sunday, with hundreds reportedly killed in clashes pitting Druze fighters against Sunni Bedouin tribes and the army and its allies.In a televised speech, Islamist interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa said community leaders would resume control over security in Sweida after the deployment of government troops on Tuesday fuelled the sectarian bloodshed and prompted Israeli military intervention.Government troops told AFP that the order to withdraw came shortly before midnight (2100 GMT Wednesday) and they completed their pullout from the province at dawn.An AFP photographer counted 15 bodies on the street in the centre of Sweida on Thursday after government forces pulled out.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said more than 370 people have been killed in sectarian clashes in the city since Sunday.Israel had pounded government troops with air strikes during their brief deployment to the southern province and also struck army headquarters in Damascus, warning that its strikes would intensify until the Islamist-led government pulled back.Sharaa announced in a televised address that “responsibility” for security in Sweida would be returned to community leaders “based on the supreme national interest”.- Promise of ‘protection’ -Sharaa, whose Islamist-led interim government has had troubled relations with ethnic and religious minority groups since it toppled veteran leader Bashar al-Assad in December, also pledged to protect the Druze.”We are keen on holding accountable those who transgressed and abused our Druze people, as they are under the protection and responsibility of the state,” he said. March saw massacres of more than 1,700 mostly Alawite civilians in their hub on the Mediterranean coast, with government-affiliated groups blamed for most of the killings. Government forces also battled Druze fighters in Sweida province and near Damascus in April and May, leaving more than 100 people dead.Government troops had entered Sweida on Tuesday with the stated aim of overseeing a truce, following days of deadly sectarian clashes.But witnesses said government forces had instead joined the Bedouin in attacking Druze fighters and civilians.Addressing the Druze, Sharaa attempted to reassure the minority community, vowing that “protecting your rights and freedom is one of our priorities”.- US mediation -He hit out at Israel’s military intervention which saw it strike army headquarters in Damascus on Wednesday after repeated strikes on Syrian government troops during their brief deployment in Sweida. But the Syrian leader, who met briefly with US President Donald Trump in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, also thanked Washington for its role in brokering a diplomatic solution.”The Israeli entity resorted to a wide-scale targeting of civilian and government facilities,” that would have pushed “matters to a large-scale escalation, except for the effective intervention of American, Arab, and Turkish mediation, which saved the region from an unknown fate”, Sharaa said.The United States — a close ally of Israel that has been trying to reboot its relationship with Syria — said an agreement had been reached to restore calm in the area, urging “all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made”.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said all sides had “agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end”.”This will require all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made and this is what we fully expect them to do,” he posted on X.Israel, which has its own Druze community, has presented itself as a defender of the Syrian minority, although some analysts say that is a pretext for pursuing its own military goal of keeping Syrian government forces as far away as possible from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.Israel, which is home to around 150,000 Druze citizens, has repeatedly stated its intention to defend Syria’s Druze community.The Israeli military, which has taken control of the UN-monitored demilitarised zone on the Golan Heights and conducted hundreds of strikes on military targets in Syria, also says it will not allow any Syrian military presence in the south.Despite having initiated contact with a first face-to-face meeting in Azerbaijan earlier this month, Israel remains extremely wary of Syria’s new rulers, including Sharaa whose Hayat Tahrir al-Sham movement was once linked to Al-Qaeda.burs-kir/ysm

France court orders release of Lebanese militant after four decades in prison

A French appeals court Thursday ordered the release of pro-Palestinian Lebanese militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who has been imprisoned for 40 years for the 1982 killings of two foreign diplomats.Abdallah, 74, is one of the longest serving prisoners in France, where most convicts serving life sentences are freed after less than 30 years.He has been up for release for 25 years, but the United States — a civil party to the case — has consistently opposed him leaving prison.Abdallah was detained in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for his involvement in the murders of US military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in Paris.The Lebanese of Maronite Christian heritage has always insisted he is a “fighter” who battled for the rights of Palestinians and not a “criminal”.The Paris Appeals Court ordered he be freed from a prison in the south of France next week, on Friday, July 25, on the condition that he leave French territory and never return.It said the length of his detention had been “disproportionate” and that he no longer represented a danger to the public.Several sources before the hearing said that it was planned for him to be flown to Paris and then to Beirut.Prosecutors can file an appeal with France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, but any such request is not expected to be processed fast enough to halt his release next week.- ‘Delighted’ -The detainee’s brother, Robert Abdallah, in Lebanon told AFP he was overjoyed.”We’re delighted. I didn’t expect the French judiciary to make such a decision nor for him to ever be freed, especially after so many failed requests for release,” he said.”For once, the French authorities have freed themselves from Israeli and US pressure,” he added.Lebanese authorities have repeatedly said Abdallah should be freed from jail, and had written to the appeals court to say they would organise his return home.Abdallah’s lawyer Jean-Louis Chalanset also welcomed the decision, calling it a “political scandal he was not released earlier”.In November last year, a French court ordered him to be let go conditional on Abdallah leaving France.But France’s anti-terror prosecutors, arguing that he had not changed his political views, appealed the decision, which was suspended.A verdict was supposed to have been delivered in February, but the Paris appeals court postponed, saying it was unclear whether Abdallah had proof that he had paid compensation to the plaintiffs, something he has consistently refused to do.- ‘Past symbol’ -The court re-examined the latest request for his release last month.During the closed-door hearing, Abdallah’s lawyer told the judges that 16,000 euros had been placed in the prisoner’s bank account and were at the disposal of civil parties in the case, including the United States, according to several sources who attended.Abdallah, who hails from the north of Lebanon, was wounded as a teenager when Israel invaded the south of the country in 1978 in the early years of the Lebanese Civil War.As an adult, he founded the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions — LARF, a Marxist pro-Syria and anti-Israel group that has now been dissolved.After his arrest in 1984, French police discovered submachine guns and transceiver stations in one of his Paris apartments.The appeals court in February however noted that the FARL “had not committed a violent action since 1984” and that Abdallah “today represented a past symbol of the Palestinian struggle”.Lebanon hosts tens of thousands of Palestinians, according to the United Nations, most descendants of those who fled or were expelled from their land during the creation of Israel in 1948.

Strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church injures several people

A strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church injured several people on Thursday, the territory’s civil defence agency and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said, as Italy’s prime minister slammed “unacceptable” Israeli attacks on civilians.The raid came as Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that Israeli strikes killed 18 people across the Palestinian territory on Thursday.”The Holy Family Church in Gaza has been struck by a raid this morning. There are several injuries in the place including the Parish Priest, Fr. Gabriel Romanelli,” Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarchate said in a statement. It added that no fatalities had been confirmed but that the church had sustained damage. Gaza’s civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that a strike on the Catholic church resulted in injuries, including the priest.The Israeli military said it was “looking into it” when contacted by AFP.- ‘Serious act’ -Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said that “Israeli strikes on Gaza have also hit the Holy Family Church”, a parish in Gaza City with which the late Pope Francis had regular contact throughout the war. “The attacks against the civilian population carried out by Israel for months are unacceptable,” Meloni said in a post on X.”No military action can justify such behaviour.”Out of the Gaza Strip’s population of more than two million, about 1,000 are Christians. Most of them are Orthodox but according to the Latin Patriarchate, there are about 135 Catholics in the territory.Since the early days of the war which erupted in October 2023, members of the Catholic community have been sheltering at the Holy Family Church compound in Gaza City, and some Orthodox Christians have also found refuge there.Pope Francis repeatedly called for an end to the war. In his final Easter message, a day before his death on April 21, he condemned the “deplorable humanitarian situation” in the Palestinian territory.Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on Thursday denounced “a serious act against a Christian place of worship”.”I offer my sincere condolences to Father Romanelli, who was wounded in the raid,” he posted on X.- ‘Totally unacceptable’ -Monsignor Pascal Gollnisch, the head of Catholic charity l’Oeuvre d’Orient, told AFP the raid was “totally unacceptable”.”It is a place of worship. It is a Catholic church known for its peaceful attitude, for being a peacemaker. These are people who are at the service of the population,” he said.”There was no strategic objective, there were no jihadists in this church. There were families, there were civilians. This is totally unacceptable and we condemn in the strongest possible terms this attitude on the part of Israel.”More than 21 months of war have created dire humanitarian conditions for Gaza’s population, displacing most residents at least once and triggering severe shortages of food and other essentials.The war was triggered by a Hamas attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 58,573 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.burs-acc/phz/ysm