Tag: Israel

Southern Lebanon is largely Shia Muslim, but there are a handful of predominantly Christian villages – Melkite Catholics, Maronite Catholics and Greek Orthodox. These have been spared, along with Druze villages, as they were not harbouring Hezbollah militants. But their residents have been cut off from the rest of the country; they live on islands in a sea of destruction.

The war between Israel and Hezbollah threatens to accelerate the dechristianisation of the land where Christ walked

The Assembly of Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops in Lebanon issued a statement 5 March in which they called "for an immediate halt to the spiral of violence" currently taking place in the Middle East

The Vatican secretary of state appealed for peace and diplomacy on the fifth day of the US and Israel-Iran war, warning that recognition of any country's right to wage "preventive war" according to their own criteria would risk the world "being set ablaze."

As the scourge of war spreads across the Middle East, including Lebanon, the ones paying the ultimate price are the innocent men, women and children who want to live in peace, said Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop Georges Iskandar of Tyre.

Catholics across the Middle East are reeling with shock and sorrow, and responding with prayer, amid joint strikes Israeli and US forces launched on Iran 28 February.

When did you last read a book all the way through? asks Philippa Martyr.

After two years of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, emotions were still raw despite the ceasefire, with each person having lived a very different experience.

In an historic breakthrough, all Israeli hostages still held in Gaza have been freed, and 250 Palestinian prisoners released as part of a US-brokered ceasefire, with the release of more Palestinian prisoners to follow.

President Donald Trump said during a meeting in Egypt on 13 October that "phase two has started" of a peace deal between Israel and Hamas in response to a question from a reporter about when the next stage of negotiations would begin.

Pope Leo XIV decried "the rise of antisemitic hatred in the world," particularly as evidenced by "the terrorist attack in Manchester," England, 2 October, an attack that killed two men.

An independent United Nations inquiry commission concluded in a 16 September report Israel is committing genocide in Gaza—but a "serious weakness" in the UN's Security Council could prevent taking action in accord with the Genocide Convention, said Father Elias D Mallon, special assistant to the president of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association-Pontifical Mission.