Israel kills at least 8 in attack on Catholic church in Lebanon

So much for targeting Hezbollah

Derdghaya Roman Catholic church in Lebanon has been destroyed by an Israeli missile last week, killing at least eight people, according to the British branch of the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). The church was some of the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese people displaced by Israel’s invasion and mass bombing of civilian areas. Nearby church buildings, including the priest’s house, were also destroyed.

Pope Francis has called for peace in the Middle East saying that “all nations have the right to exist in peace and security: Their territories must not be attacked, their sovereignty must be respected and guaranteed through dialogue and peace”. The Catholic church head went on to call for an “immediate ceasefire on all fronts of the war in the Middle East” and for believers to pray for the people of Lebanon.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, in a public letter to the pope, said:

In this context of deep-rooted hatred, there is a need for empathy, for gestures and words of love that, even if they do not change the course of events, bring comfort and consolation.

We will not give in to the events that seem to drive us apart; rather we will always try to be builders thirsty for peace and justice…

…From this difficult moment, we must learn to make our relationships even stronger and more sincere in the future, to build authentic and serious contexts of peace and respect.

Israel has slaughter thousands of civilians, including children, in its mass bombing of residential areas, which followed its illegal, indiscriminate terrorist campaign that killed and maimed thousands of Lebanese using booby-trapped pagers and radios, again including children.

Earlier this week, it killed at least twenty-one in an attack on homes in Christian-majority Aitou, in the far north of Lebanon miles from the zone it supposedly wants to clear of Hezbollah.

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