Gaza situation ‘morally unacceptable,’ says Latin patriarch of Jerusalem after visit to church hit by IDF shell

Speaking at a Jerusalem press conference following his visit last week to the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa says humanitarian aid for Gaza is a “matter of life and death.”

“Refusing it is not a delay, but a sentence,” he says. “Every hour without food, water, medicine and shelter causes deep harm.”

Three Gazan Christians were killed last week when an Israeli tank shell hit the Strip’s only Catholic church.

“We witnessed both profound grief and unyielding hope,” Orthodox Patriarch Theophilus III, who visited the church with Pizzaballa, says at the press conference. “Silence in the face of suffering is a betrayal of conscience.”

“Christ is not absent from Gaza,” says Pizzaballa. “He is there — crucified in the wounded, buried under rubble and yet present in every act of mercy, every candle in the darkness, every hand extended to the suffering.”

Pizzaballa calls the situation “morally unacceptable and unjustifiable.”

Turning to world leaders, he says, “There can be no future based on captivity, displacement of Palestinians or revenge.”

“It is time to end this nonsense, end the war and put the common good of people as the top priority,” says Pizzaballa.

The cardinal also calls for the release of the hostages held in Gaza.

Pizzaballa stresses that the church has no military expertise, and is therefore in no position to say whether or not the IDF fired at the church intentionally. Israel has said it was mistaken.

“We don’t have any evidence or proof or anything,” he says. “We are not experts in military operations. Maybe it’s a mistake, we don’t know, because when you keep bombing everywhere,” he ends with a shrug.

The two patriarchs did not bring in any supplies with them, though they did get approval from Israel to send 500 tons of aid into Gaza. “We are working on this,” says Pizzaballa. “In the coming day, when all the elements are done, the supplies will enter.”

The two clergymen were struck by the evident hunger they encountered in Gaza.

“You don’t see starvation,” says Pizzaballa. “You experience starvation.”

He recounts people wandering around listlessly, kids begging him for food, and wildly inflated prices for food.

Pizzaballa stresses that while “we are denouncing what is going on in Gaza,” they also “acknowledge the solidarity of many parts of Israeli society.”

“We are not against Israel, we are not against the Jewish people,” he says, emphasizing that they are against “the current policy in Gaza.”

“Morally we cannot justify it.”

Pizzaballa says that while the Holy Family Church is in an area under a general evacuation order by the IDF, no specific orders have been given to the church, in which about 400 civilians are sheltering.