Mounting threats to Christian presence in Holy Land

The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accusing the Israeli authorities of threatening the Christian community by making demands for unpaid tax.

Four municipalities, including Nazareth and Jerusalem, have contacted the Churches or opened legal action to recover tax payable on commercial property which the Churches said they did not pay by historic custom, in recognition of their social contribution and importance to pilgrims.

“We believe these efforts represent a coordinated attack on the Christian presence in the Holy Land,” the letter said. “In this time, when the whole world, and the Christian world in particular, are constantly following the events in Israel, we find ourselves, once again, dealing with an attempt by authorities to drive the Christian presence out of the Holy Land.”

The municipalities insisted the process was routine. The Jerusalem authorities told the Associated Press that “a dialogue is taking place with the Churches to collect debts for the commercial properties they own” after they failed to request tax exemptions.

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the Archbishop of Bologna and president of the Italian bishops’ conference, said that the presence of Christians in the Holy Land was important because “their presence fosters encounter, precisely because of the nature of Christianity, which in all circumstances sees the other person as neighbour”.

He was speaking after a leading a “Peace and Solidarity” pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Bethlehem on 13-16 June, with representatives of the Community of Sant’Egidio, the Focolare Movement and Pax Christi among the 160 pilgrims.

Zuppi reported that the military occupation, the crisis of employment and the lack of a stable future “do nothing other than fuel the exodus of Christians … and the Holy Land becoming empty of its original inhabitants.”

He said it was important “to show our spiritual and concrete proximity to the communities of the Holy Land and to encourage them not to leave”. He called for an effective peace process to make this possible.

“The international community cannot abandon the ‘two peoples, two states’ solution,” he said, adding that “peace is made not only by the warring parties, but also by the international community, which must be committed to finding avenues for negotiation”.

The pilgrims met representatives of Israeli civil society, including Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh has been held hostage held by Hamas since 7 October. 

They also visited charitable and educational institutions in Bethlehem, such as the Caritas Baby Hospital, and the small Christian communities in villages of the West Bank (Ain Arik, Beit Sahour, Taybeh, Birzeit), “of which little has been heard since the 7 October terrorist attack by Hamas, the consequences of which are weighing heavily on the lives of the local population”.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa described the pilgrimage to “this tormented land” as “a courageous gesture”.

“From an economic point of view, the absence of tourism, especially religious tourism, is bringing the economy to its knees, and it is also no longer possible for Palestinians to go to work in Israel,” Pax Christi reported. 

“The problem of illegal Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank is magnifying dramatically. If the settlers have always been protected by the army – and therefore by the state – despite violating international law and even some Israeli laws, they no longer have any brakes.

“There are daily attacks, killings of livestock, fires and many other brutal methods to try to induce the Palestinian people to flee, guilty only of inhabiting their land long before the birth of the State of Israel.”

Last weekend, tens of thousands of Israelis protested in Tel Aviv demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of hostages held by Hamas. Organisers said it was the largest anti-government protest since 7 October. The protesters – including relatives of about 120 hostages still held – also called for new elections.

Health authorities in Gaza reported that more than 37,400 people had been killed by the Israeli offensive.

This week, Christian Aid released testimonies from mothers in Gaza, revealing the dangerous conditions for pregnancies and births. The charity’s partner, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, interviewed displaced women and girls in Gaza City and Rafah who reported babies dying in their wombs, after birth or being injured during delivery. Save the Children reported that over 20,000 children in Gaza are lost or buried in rubble.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Relief Works Agency which supports Palestinian refugees, described Gaza as “a living hell – a nightmare from which they cannot wake”. He warned that there were more than 625,000 “deeply traumatised” children “living in the rubble” without access to education.

Worsening clashes on the Israel-Lebanon border also threaten a “full-blown war”, Lazzarini warned, echoing the UN Secretary-General António Guterres who said last week that “the world cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza”.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin visited Lebanon this week, meeting government and Church leaders, and visiting humanitarian programmes run by the Order of Malta. In southern Lebanon, Catholic parishes have been affected by violence straying across the border with Northern Israel in clashes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah.

About 70 per cent of the populations on 10 Catholic parishes in the Maronite Archdiocese of Tyre, close to the border, have returned after fleeing the area as the conflict in Gaza escalated.

Archbishop Charbel Abdallah of Tyre told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) last week that most of the people who fled and went to Beirut or further north “have now returned home because they were short of money and the little houses of their relatives who took them in did not have the capacity to accommodate so many people”.

Abdallah said that visits to the parishes “encourage the people enormously – they sense that they have not been left in the lurch by the Church”.

Marielle Boutros, project coordinator of ACN in Lebanon, said she was deeply impressed by the courage and faithfulness of bishops, priests, religious brothers or nuns who have remained in the region despite the constant danger. She reported that even the priests of the two parishes Alma el Chaeb and Quzah – which are near airstrikes – have stayed.

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