Christmas without peace in Palestine

The Israeli offensive continues without respite in the Gaza Strip. According to the Israeli military, in the last 24 hours it has attacked more than 200 Hamas “terrorist targets”, including a weapons warehouse inside a civilian compound in the north. Furthermore, he has claimed to have arrested, in the last week, more than 200 alleged members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad (800 since the start of the war).

In another operation in Jabalia, also in the north, aviation and artillery troops have killed seven other suspected Hamas militants and destroyed four observation points, according to the Army, which has reported that 152 Israeli soldiers have died in combat in the enclave since the beginning of the ground offensive on October 27.

Israel, for its part, has caused, with its bombings and air and ground attacks, the death of more than 20,200 Palestinian civiliansamong them more than 8,000 children, in addition to leaving 56,000 people injured, and thousands missing in the rubble, the highest number of victims that any other conflict has left in Palestinian territory, according to the count of the Gazan Ministry of Health.

mourning christmas

Every December 24th, Belen -center of the Palestinian Christian community- celebrates a traditional parade with music bands, prior to the arrival of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem on foot to officiate a mass in the Church of Saint Catherine, in the Catholic part of the Basilica of the Nativity.

But this year, Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa – the Vatican’s religious envoy to the Holy Land – will arrive in Bethlehem on a solemn procession, without music or festive events, mourning the high number of Palestinian deaths in the war in the Gaza Strip.

The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbasstressed in a congratulatory message, that he hopes that Christmas will bring a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, with a view also to moving towards “an independent State with Jerusalem as its capital.”

“The rivers of blood, the immense sacrifices, the difficulties and the heroic resistance of our people for their land are the path to freedom and dignity,” he stated, according to the WAFA news agency.

“The Palestinian people are determined to continue their struggle to achieve their legitimate rights, the main of which is the right to an independent and fully sovereign State, where they can live with dignity in their homeland,” he added.

The Palestinian president has also paid tribute to the thousands of “martyrs of Palestine”, wished a speedy recovery for the wounded, freedom for prisoners and prayed for the preservation of the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem and the diaspora.