Palestine FM laments attacks on religious sites; Israel blames Hamas – GMA Network

A Palestinian official has lamented the attacks on Christian villages in Gaza amid Israel’s military operations against Hamas militants. 
At a press conference in Makati City on Thursday, Palestinian Foreign Minister Varsen Shahin said that the Christian population has been slowly dwindling in Palestine, which she called the “cradle of Christianity.”
“The Christian population has been dwindling from, let’s say, 12% in the last century to 10% to 8% to 5%. Today, we are less than 1% in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. That’s a very, very low number, but the contribution is still very high because we are in every sphere that you can think of,” she said.
“We need to raise awareness on that because many people today don’t even know that there are Christians in Palestine. When we talk about Christianity in Palestine, we talk about Jerusalem and Bethlehem, where it all started for Christians.”
Shahin highlighted the significance of preserving Christian heritage sites, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is believed to be the location of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, and the Church of the Nativity, where Jesus is said to have been born.
“We would want Christians to be preserved, to stay in the cradle of Christianity, to bear witness for the future, and you can imagine what it means to have a cradle of Christianity without its Christian population,” she added. 
Shahin said that Christians are “part and parcel” of the Palestinian population.
“I can assure you that Christianity is very much respected by the Palestinians,” she said.
Shahin said that she had conducted meetings with Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David and Cardinal Jose Advincula during her visit to the Philippines to discuss the plight of Christians in Gaza.
David and Advincula have been open with their support for Palestine amid the conflict between Hamas and Israel. 
Advincula earlier called for prayers and peace petitions for war-stricken lands, including Palestine, in daily masses starting July 2024.
In December 2024, David discussed the conflict in Palestine and mentioned that as long as Bethlehem was surrounded by Israel with walls, there would be no peace in the world.
“Hindi tayo magkakaroon ng kapayapaan sa mundo hangga’t hindi natin natutunan na wasakin ang mga pader ng hidwaan at alitan sa isa’t-isa batay sa kulay, o sa relihyon, o sa lahi, o sa kasarian, o sa estado ng pamumuhay,” David had said.
(We will not have peace in the world until we learn to tear down the barriers of conflict and disagreement between each other based on color, religion, race, gender, or social status.)
The late Pope Francis had also criticized Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip.
Shahin said that the two-year-old war had also caused significant damage to the Greek Orthodox St. Porphyrius Church in Gaza.
It was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes while housing several Gazan refugees that died in the attack.
“Churches were bombed. The mosques [like] Al-Omari Mosque [were] bombed. All of it, gone,” she said.
“The heritage is under a lot of threat, and the world needs to stand up and say, enough is enough. Israel cannot continue with whatever it has been doing for a long time.”
Israel’s response
However, Israeli Ambassador to the Philippines Dana Kursh said that Israel had not targeted any specific church, mosque, or heritage sites in their military operations in Gaza.
In an interview with GMA News Online, Kursh said that the Israeli forces were exerting maximum effort to avoid further damage to Palestine and its religious sites.
“What the Hamas terrorist organization is choosing is to place themselves in those spaces, especially in order that we will, God forbid, harm them. And we are doing the maximum to prevent that from happening,” she said.
Kursh added that Israel must not be blamed for the destruction of Christian heritage in Palestine.
“How are Christians treated in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas terrorist organization and other jihadists? Israel is the homeland. It’s the birthplace of the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. We are doing the utmost not to jeopardize any religion and the freedom of religion, whether in Israel, in the Gaza Strip, or in the West Bank. The people who are exploiting that and basically using that are the Hamas terrorist organization,” she said.
“Unfortunately, the way they treat the Christians—the fact that the Christian community is diminishing—is not because of Israelis. It’s because they have chosen to have regulations, rules that are restrictive of the Christians. The finger should not be pointed at us, but at the Hamas terrorist organization and other jihadis.” —VBL, GMA Integrated News

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