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Amid an increasingly desperate situation in the Holy Land, there are small signs of hope that goodness will prevail in the end, according to representatives of a Christian aid agency working in Jerusalem and Beirut.
The Catholic Near East Welfare Association and the Pontifical Mission for Palestine hosted a webinar Monday evening featuring its two representatives in the Israeli and Lebanese capitals, Joseph Hazboun and Michel Constantin.
The two men discussed the current situation, particularly for Christians in the Middle East, as the war which began with the October 7, 2023, incursion of Hamas into southern Israel threatens to escalate.
The situation for civilians is indeed grim, and yet, things could get even worse, particularly in Lebanon, where Israeli military action against Hezbollah has already caused an “unprecedented” displacement of civilians, according to Constantin, regional director of CNEWA/Pontifical Mission for Palestine in Lebanon.
Since Israel began its military campaign against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, Constantin said, “We estimate that already 25% of residential buildings, schools, churches or mosques have been destroyed completely, and almost 90% of the people of the South have left. They are displaced in Mount Lebanon and in Beirut and in North Lebanon.” [Photo above shows site of an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanese village of Zawtar el Charkiyeh, on November 4.]
Constantin called it the largest displacement since the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War.
Hospitality
Many of the people who have been uprooted are not staying in shelters, however, but being put up in people’s homes in various parts of the country.
“They call them ‘our guests,’ not ‘the displaced people,’” Constantin said.
It’s not unheard of for a family to host 20 such guests.
Nevertheless, Constantin claims that Israel is trying to create internal conflict in Lebanon. It does so, he said, by chasing Shiite families into Christian, Sunni, and Druze villages and then bombing those villages, leading inhabitants of those villages to ask the displaced persons to find another place to stay.
“And they don't have another place,” Constantin said. “So we are very much afraid in Lebanon that this could create internal tension that could lead eventually to a mini-civil war, or kind of internal violence between Lebanese.”
He said that Israel sometimes gives residents only a 20-minute warning that it will take military action against their locale, due to alleged presence of Hezbollah fighters or weapons.
“After 20 minutes, residents are still on the road leaving, and they see their houses and the whole village destroyed completely,” he said. “So they don't have time to pick up anything to take with them. We have seen people in pajamas on the street. They left at midnight. I have seen elderly people who need oxygen who were left behind, because their family couldn't get them ready in 20 minutes, and they were killed in their homes.”
Some internally displaced persons are sheltering in public schools, but many facilities lack potable water, and sometimes even running water to operate toilets.
“They don't have electricity, because electricity in Lebanon comes from private generators, and those public schools don't have them,” he said.
As winter approaches, a lack of heating equipment is causing extra concern.
Some IDPs have gone to Mount Lebanon, a mountain range that averages 8,200 feet above sea level. “And we have very harsh, icy, and snowy winters,” Constantin said. “I don't know what will happen to those people a month from now.”
He said that in one area, snowfall that is expected soon will block the road, leaving the people there without basic necessities.
Gaza
In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, Israel’s response to Hamas’ invasion has been a “systematic destruction of the infrastructure and of that which makes life possible in Gaza,” said Joseph Hazboun, regional director of the Jerusalem field office of the Pontifical Mission for Palestine.
That includes significant damage to or destruction of 85% of schools and almost 50% of the hospitals. More than 42,000 Palestinians have died, half of whom, he said, are women and children. Ninety percent of the population has been displaced.
“Women, children, families have had to move from their homes seeking what was announced as safe areas, which were not safe,” he said.
Almost 750 people are staying at the Gaza City compounds of the Latin Catholic Church of the Holy Family and the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius. It's not easy for them to have to take turns in using the bathroom facilities and living on rations of food, water, and medicines, “but they have to make it work out, because this is the only place where they feel safe.”
In an email to Aleteia, Hazboun explained that while churches "have always been a safe haven for people who seek refuge, Israel has breached this internationally recognized custom when they attacked the church compound."
"However, the church remains the only place that continues to be under the radar of the international community thanks to the monitoring and follow-up by the local Church and Church institutions, as well as NGOs and other concerned parties," he said.
In addition, since Christians in Gaza have lost most of their property, the only place they have now is the church.
"Even if the war ends tonight, it will take months for them to find the needed support and actually repair their damaged homes," Hazboun said.
"This is really tragic. I can't imagine that all of this is happening in the 21st century. Everybody watches but no party dares to challenge Israel," he told Aleteia. "It is a strange world, or rather a barbaric one. So, we shouldn't be amazed by the barbarism of the Middle Ages, what we're witnessing is far more brutal and barbaric. It is demonic."
Even though they are not in an active war zone, residents of Jerusalem and the West Bank also are adversely affected. Life in the Israeli capital “seems to be normal,” Hazboun said, but there is an “unbearable” tension due to a “rupture in the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians that will take years to mend.”
In the West Bank, another dynamic has adversely impacted the Palestinian population – increasing Jewish settlements and attacks from settlers against residents.
“For the past few years, the settlers have prevented villagers from gathering olives,” Hazboun said. “For many families, the olive season is almost the only income for the family for the year.”
Of course, everybody wants peace, said Hazboun, "but we want peace with dignity, and we want to be able to live in security, just like the Israelis. So we need people to put more pressure on their governments to push for peace, to push for serious negotiation, negotiations that will put an end to” the suffering.
Constantin, meanwhile, hopes for a peace that will allow Lebanon “to continue as a country, to continue as a ‘message,’ as Pope John Paul II said. In Lebanon we have the Christians, the Druze, the Shia, where everyone is a minority and living in synchronization. During this crisis, we can still see hope, because people are still standing for each other. They are still helping each other from different religious groups.”
