Israel: Fr. Ibrahim Faltas, Head of Schools of the Custody of the Holy Land, deplores the situation in the West Bank and issues a warning both to those who fuel the violence and to those “who fail to intervene to stop this endless spiral.” He expresses hope that the elections announced in Israel and Palestine will bring “new balance and genuine justice to both peoples.”
Once again, violence is intensifying in the Holy Land—a violence that has never left this land. It escalates into further acts of revenge, lengthens the lists of the dead and the destruction, narrows the prospects for peace, and shuts minds and hearts behind barbed-wire fences.
The West Bank is burning, bleeding, crying out in pain and suffering.
Like Gaza, the West Bank has become a territory that has lost its scale and its spaces, a place that is no longer recognizable—a land physically and socially divided, scarred by deep wounds, and affronted in its historical identity.
Every corner of this land suffers violence and destruction every day; every inhabitant endures deprivation, restrictions, suffering, and humiliation that grow worse with each passing day.
People are dying in an unofficial war, undeclared but that continues, constant and widespread. There have been countless fires in homes and on land. It is no longer possible to travel from one city to another – even if they’re very close – whether for medical emergencies, to work, to help relatives, or to defend small family properties that have been illegally occupied and seized by aggressive and violent settlers. They suffocate the hopes of young people, who can no longer even imagine their own future. They destroy the expectations of those who worked hard to build the past and the present. They shatter the smiles and dreams of children who see their land burned, restricted, and drained of colour.
