Posted: 1/30/08
| Sheikh Raed Salah (center), head of the Islamic Movement in northern Israel, prays during a protest against Israel's blockade of Gaza, at the Erez crossing just outside the northern Gaza Strip. Israel recently resumed fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip's main power plant, offering limited respite from a blockade that plunged much of the Hamas-ruled territory into darkness and touched off international protests. (REUTERS/Ammar Awad) |
Holy Land church leaders appeal for Gaza
By Michele Chabin
Religion News Service
JERUSALEM (RNS)—Christian leaders from the Holy Land are demanding that Israel, President Bush and the world community “put an end to this suffering” of Gaza residents caught in the crossfire between Israel and the Hamas militants who rule the Gaza Strip.
“There is no time to waste when human life is endangered,” said the heads of the churches in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.
The clerics, many of them Palestinians, called on Israel to put the control of Gaza’s borders under Palestinian responsibility to ensure that fuel, food and medicine reaches those who need it.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sealed Gaza’s borders in order to pressure Hamas to stop shelling the Israeli town of Sderot and nearby communities. In recent days, Hamas has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, which Israel evacuated 2 1/2 years ago.
The situation in Gaza became desperate when fuel shortages led the Hamas-led government to shut Gaza City’s main power station. Much of Gaza City, including hospitals, was without electricity until Olmert, under international pressure, permitted the import of fuel and some humanitarian aid.
“There are a half million people imprisoned and without proper food or medicine; 800,000 without electricity supply. This is illegal collective punishment, an immoral act in violation of the basic human and natural laws as well as international law. It cannot be tolerated anymore. The siege over Gaza should end now,” the church leaders said.
“This siege will not guarantee the end to rocket firing, but will only increase the bitterness and suffering and invite more revenge, while the innocents keep dying. True peace building is the only way to bring the desired security.”
The clerics also urged the warring Palestinian factions of Hamas and Fatah “to unite in ending their differences for the sake of their people in Gaza.”
By firing rockets into Israel, they added, “you encourage public opinion outside this land to feel there is a justification for this siege.”
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