The ransacking and torching of a Christian convent and church in the Gaza Strip last week symbolise the mounting threats faced by Christians living in the Palestinian territories, part of a wider crisis that is rooted in the inability to resolve the conflict with Israel as well as Palestinian in-fighting, a top Catholic cleric based in Jerusalem has told Adnkronos International (AKI).Archbishop Fouad Boutros Twal, Coadjutor Archbishop of Jerusalem, was speaking on the sidelines of a international gathering of Catholic clerics and researchers under the auspices of the Patriarch of Venice, Cardian Angelo Scola.
On June 14 militants armed with handgrenades attacked a Convent of the Sisters of the Rosary school in Gaza destroying furniture, chairs, and vandalising a chapel were holy images and sacred books were burnt.
"Fortunately, the damages were only material," said Twal, adding that "those who carry out such deeds exploit the instability" into which Gaza has fallen since bloody clashes between the two main Palestinian factions resumed.
"What happened (at the Gaza convent) is only one incident. The territories are in a deep crisis: the [Israeli] occupation on the one hand, and the lack of a stable [Palestinian Authority] government on the other. The general chaos serves to generate crisis upon crisis", he told AKI
"The media should not focus on one small crisis while ignoring the bigger issue, in the same way as we cannot watch one burning tree while ignoring the forest fire," he said.
The attack against the Christian targets in Gaza has "been used by everyone for their own means - Fatah, Hamas, the West and Israel", Archbishop Twal said.
"We can rebuild our convent school, even with the help of both Hamas and Fatah, but who will help us rebuild our destroyed country?" Twal asked.
"What is really saddening is that the stand taken by [Roman Catholic] Patriarch of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah and his constant appeals to the international community in favour of Palestine have been compensated with this act of aggression (the Gaza convent attack)," he concluded.
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