CNEWA held a briefing and webinar on the escalating conflict in the Middle East on Monday, 4 November, with Michel Constantin in Beirut, regional director for Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, and Joseph Hazboun in Jerusalem, regional director for Palestine and Israel, moderated by Msgr. Peter I. Vaccari, CNEWA-Pontifical Mission president, and Michael La Civita, director of communications and marketing. The live event was hosted from Dillon Hall in New York City.
As the Israel-Hamas conflict enters its 13th month, Mr. Hazboun provided an overview of the impact on the Christian community in Gaza, recounting the bombing of the Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrios that killed 21 people who had been sheltering there, 19 October 2023.
“There was a systemic destruction of the infrastructure and what makes life possible in Gaza,” he added.
The impact on Christian institutions is indicative of what faces every institution in Gaza, according to Mr. Hazboun, who cited the destruction of 470 of Gaza’s 564 schools and 17 of its 36 hospitals.
More than 42,000 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 120,000 have been injured, he said.
The situation in the West Bank was also top of mind for Mr. Hazboun, as some 4,000 Christian families have been without work since the conflict began last October, largely due to the losses in the tourism sector and inaccessibility of agricultural land.
Additionally, the further separation of the “other” — from both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives — has augmented existing tensions, sowing seeds of fear and distrust, he explained.
“In Jerusalem, life seems to be normal, but the tension is unbearable. There is a rupture in the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians that will take years to mend.”
“I always say it, Jerusalem and the West Bank and the Holy Land is paradise on earth, but we need peace so that we can enjoy this paradise — and everybody can enjoy it, not only this fraction of people or that.”
When asked to convey a message to the West about donor fatigue and the normalization of war in the Middle East, Mr. Hazboun returned to his plea for peace: “If they are tired, we are tired, and we ask them, please work for peace.”
Similarly in Lebanon, peace is a priority.
“We just need peace to be able to continue to rebuild our country,” said Mr. Constantin. “And the Lebanese are known to be resilient enough to go back to life, but not with all this destruction and all this brutality.”
As the war continues to spread into Lebanon with the escalation of bombardment, the displaced are in desperate need of food, potable water, fuel and other necessities.
Mr. Constantin pointed to southern Lebanon, where he said 25 percent of buildings have been destroyed completely and 90 percent of the population has fled to Mount Lebanon, Beirut and the north.
Many of the displaced were only given 20 minutes to evacuate their homes, he said. For some, such as the elderly who need oxygen, the window of time was not wide enough for them to flee and they were killed in their homes.
Additionally, inhabitants in the city of Deir el Ahmar in the Bekaa Valley, numbering between 7,000-9,000, have received some 20,000 people into their homes and schools, leaving them “without any capacity to sustain their family [or] themselves.”
“During this crisis, we can still see hope because people are still standing for each other. They are still helping each other from different religious groups,” he added, as most of the those displaced in Deir el Ahmar are Shiite Muslims finding refuge with Christian families in a largely Christian-inhabited city.
As winter approaches, however, families and shelters who have taken in the displaced will encounter shortages of food and fuel, as they burned through their supplies quickly to assist the displaced. Public schools, where some 400,000 people are sheltering, do not even have electricity or water.
Watch the full webinar below.
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