Cardinal Pizzaballa calls on Christians to help build bridges amid cautious hope for end to war in Gaza

As talks get underway to end the war in Gaza, the top Catholic leader in the Holy Land calls on Christians in the region to be a bridge and help restore trust between Israelis and Palestinians.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa says Christians — who make up just 1% of the population in the birthplace of Christianity — are of “no threat” to any side of the conflict and therefore are uniquely positioned to help everyone work toward a shared and peaceful postwar future. Though he has no illusions that it will be easy.

“In this moment, you have to be very honest, very candid — the respective communities are not ready for this,” he tells The Associated Press in his reception hall in Jerusalem’s Old City — a shared and hotly contested holy site for Christianity, Islam and Judaism. “The wounds are there, very painful. The suffering, the misunderstandings. So, what we have to do is to start from this very sad reality and rebuild.”

On the eve of the second anniversary of the Hamas-led massacre on Israel that triggered the devastating war in Gaza and violence across the region, Israeli and Hamas officials launched indirect talks today in Egypt on a US-drafted peace plan.

Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, says that cautious hope was spreading among the faithful at the one Catholic church in Gaza. It was struck by an Israeli shell in July but has continued ministering to its community and those seeking shelter in it.

“People keep dying every day out there. But at least in the air, you feel something different, you hope that maybe this is going to finish,” he says.

As for Jewish and Muslim communities, the war’s devastating toll has fractured society at all levels, Pizzaballa says.

“This war made all the different issues — political, religious, economic, cultural — explode,” he said. “Now we have to rethink everything anew.”