Reflections from the Holy Land: Hope must replace Despair!
Rami, his wife Maryan, and their daughter Kylie on the day his daughter was baptized, which occurred in late October while they were sheltering in Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius.
America the Jesuit Review : Source
There was a lot of hope in recent months first with the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon, followed by a ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
The guns stopped, [Israeli] hostages were released and the humanitarian supplies flowed in large quantities to Gaza bringing temporary relief that was thought to be the beginning of the end of this very long, bloody, and destructive war. Moving to the second phase of the agreement never materialized and [Israel] restarted its military attack on Gaza at a level not seen before. The number of people killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war surpassed 50,000, with tens of thousands being women and children. A tight embargo was reimposed when the ceasefire collapsed on March 18 including water, medicine, food, and electricity creating the most difficult man-made humanitarian catastrophe in modern history. Gaza has become uninhabitable to its 2.2 million residents given the level of destruction, with solid plans to empty the strip of its indigenous inhabitants. It is unclear how this scenario will unfold, but the silence around the world is deafening! As for the small Christian community, since the beginning of the war, close to 50 lost their lives with 20 killed as a result of direct hostilities and 30 due to medical neglect due to the absence of medicines and functioning hospitals. What remains is around 650 brave souls to whom we will continue to do the impossible to provide for them within our means as around 450 of them remain as refugees at the Holy Family complex in Gaza city.
The West Bank is also facing unprecedented conditions of blockades and travel restrictions, aggressive settler violence against the local population, the complete erasure of refugee camps such as Jenin and Tulkarem with clear plans for the other refugee camps scattered around the West Bank, creating a new wave of second- or third-time refugees estimated at around 40,000. Life is nothing but normal on the West Bank, with over 900 checkpoints and close to 300 permanent barriers that isolate villages and towns and transforms them into overnight prisons as directed by the [Israeli] forces. Traffic jams in some instances delaying travelers by as long as seven hours to get from one Palestinian town to the next has become a normal expectation! This is not to mention the record high unemployment rates that could reach 70% in some areas and some sectors. Permits to work in [Israel] are at the absolute minimum with Palestinian workers permanently being replaced by foreign workers at double the cost and half the efficiency. But who is counting! Life for Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank has become unbearable by any human standard. I am afraid to say that with social media and the wide spread of news networks, I suppose I am not disclosing any secrets!…
This news was shared from the website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, click here to read more.