Gazan Catholics ask for global support

I wanted to link to this story, “Gazan Catholics call for global support,” because it shows just how long and complicated is the history of the region. While the conflict in the Gaza Strip tends to be seen as a fight between Muslims and Jews, there is also a small and ancient Catholic community that has lived in Gaza since the third century AD.

Father Manuel Musallam, head of the Catholic Church, called on the world community to stand up for the children of Gaza after the three-week war between Israel and Hamas. “Our children are suffering from trauma, anxiety, undernourishment, malnutrition, poverty, and a lack of heating,” he said. Fr. Musallam went on to say that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip had to end and hoped the world would grant the Palestinian people “their human rights,” something he said would lead to peace in the region.

There have been ill feelings between Israel and the Catholic Church for the past few weeks since a Vatican spokesman called Gaza a “concentration camp.”