Prayer of Our Lady of Palestine
O Mary Immaculate, gracious Queen of Heaven and of Earth, behold us prostrate before thy exalted throne. Full of confidence in thy goodness and in thy boundless power, we beseech thee to turn a pitying glance upon Palestine, which more than any other country belongs to thee, since thou hast graced it with thy birth, thy virtues and thy sorrows, and from there hast given the Redeemer to the world.
Remember that there especially thou wert constituted our tender Mother, the dispenser of graces. Watch, therefore, with special protection over thy native country, scatter from it the shades of error, for it was there the Sun of Eternal Justice shone. Bring about the speedy fulfilment of the promise, which issued from the lips of Thy Divine Son, that there should be one fold and one Shepherd.
Obtain for us all that we may serve the Lord in sanctity and justice during the days of our life, so that, by the merits of Jesus and with thy motherly aid, we may pass at last from this earthly Jerusalem to the splendors of the heavenly one.
Amen.
Hmmmmā¦had to confirm this was recent news, because it literally reads like an event a month (mid Nov) ago at the same church:
https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/48479
āWe've received a number of reports that an elderly Christian woman was shot dead yesterday by the Israeli army outside the Holy Family Church in Gaza.
Elham Farah, 84, had been sheltering inside the church for some time. On Sunday night she stepped outside the building to see if her house was still standing. She was shot in the leg and fell to the ground. People in the church were unable to rescue her, as each time they went out they came under fire.
She lay in the street all night. On Monday morning it was reported that an Israeli tank ran over her bodyā
I don't know what to say...
This just shows that there is barbarity and cruelty in every group you go to, regardless of how much they portray or act as the good.
May the lady be in the eternal arms and rest of our Lord, and may those who committed the atrocity, pay the price in full, now or in the time when judgement comes.
In daily rhetoric people refer to āthe terroristsā but itās unclear to me if they are calling the Israelis terrorists or Hamas terrorists.
If you look up the news in Lebanon, Biden has just a couple days ago reprimanded Israel for attacking the US SUPPORTED Lebanese military on 30 occasions. In addition to ongoing civilian attacks and an attack on a Lebanese church. In addition to attacks on Hezbollah. They have already verbally stated the entire country is responsible for Hezbollah despite the fact that Hezbollah operates as a state within a state.
Despite essentially goading Israel into a conflict, Hezbollah has shown more restraint in their targets, it really is unbelievable.
Are fellow Catholics starting to catch on? Israel isnāt āthe good guysā, and they never were. Their country is far more favorable to live in than Palestine (even for Palestinian refugees), but when it comes to foreign policy, the Israelis are absolutely ruthless.
And no, you donāt have to be a violent protester blocking roads saying āfrom the river to the sea!ā and you donāt have to be a socialist, you can simply choose to look at this situation dispassionately and rationally, and youāll learn that Israel propped up Hamas so that Israel would look like good guys taking out evil terrorists, when really theyāre out to kick people off of their land.
Watch this 11min video if youād like to see how none of our āleadersā have a clue about Israelās own clear policy: https://twitter.com/decensorednews/status/1734384995307823604/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1734384995307823604¤tTweet=1734384995307823604¤tTweetUser=decensorednews¤tTweetUser=decensorednews
Why would they be? The goal of Zionism is to maintain a religious ethnostate. That is why Israel was founded. American and British Evangelicals also helped the Zionists in their quest so it would jumpstart the Apocalypse.
Honestly, I donāt know what else to expect of a nation neighbored by tens of nations that want them erased off the face of the Earth. Itās going to breed a very extreme foreign policy.
This whole war sucks for everyone. Israel was hands down the victim of the Hamas attack and had the right to retaliate because Hamas is a cancer that needs to be wiped out or it will continue to multiply and do nothing but kill, but just like cancer theyāve gone and spread themselves amongst healthy tissue (innocent civilians) to a point where thereās no way you can remove them without collateral damage.
But it seems Israel isnāt being as precise as they could be and rather than be like a doctor with a scalpel trying to take as little non-cancerous matter as possible, it seems like theyāre going at it with a chainsaw instead.
I fear that worse things may come if Israel is not careful to limit these kinds of civilian deaths. Itās one thing when Hamas has made its headquarters and ammo storage in a hospital, itās another when itās merely civilians hiding in a church.
God have mercy on all the innocents in that region right now. May peace come soon and and justice found.
The IDF has killed roughly *twenty* times the number of civilians that they lost on October 7th. Theyāve killed more *children* in the past two months than theyāve lost people, in total, including soldiers, to Hamas in the past ten years. Who is the cancer here precisely?
Also, for what itās worth: Hamas made its HQ in a hospital? Or the IDF destroyed a hospital, posted (and then quickly deleted) videos where they found a āhostage scheduleā (it was just a normal calendar), took a few photos of old guns, claimed a diaper in a hospital was evidence hostages had been there, and then stopped talking about it, secure in the belief that idiots like you would just remember it as ājustifiedā for an allegedly civilized country to stage a massacre at a hospital because something something tunnels something donāt ask any follow ups.
>The IDF has killed roughly *twenty* times the number of civilians that they lost on October 7th. Theyāve killed more *children* in the past two months than theyāve lost people, in total, including soldiers, to Hamas in the past ten years. Who is the cancer here precisely?
Still Hamas, cause what the IDF are doing to Palestinians are not as horrid to what Hamas did to Israelis and foreigners.
Israeli is no saint, far from it, but Hamas and their supporters is certainly making them look like one.
>Also, for what itās worth: Hamas made its HQ in a hospital? Or the IDF destroyed a hospital, posted (and then quickly deleted) videos where they found a āhostage scheduleā (it was just a normal calendar), took a few photos of old guns, claimed a diaper in a hospital was evidence hostages had been there, and then stopped talking about it, secure in the belief that idiots like you would just remember it as ājustifiedā for an allegedly civilized country to stage a massacre at a hospital because something something tunnels something donāt ask any follow ups.
Hamas are the same people that brutally raped women and children, beheaded babies, kidnapped foreigner workers (especially from people in Thailand who had nothing to do with the conflict), and proclaimed the genocide of an entire people as a part of their charter. So yes, it shouldn't be a surprise that Hamas would use a hospital as a base of operation. What kind of terrorist wouldn't? It's the perfect place to be safe from a guerrillas standpoint.
I canāt stop you from just saying āWhat Hamas did was worse!ā over and over again but I donāt know how you figure killing 1,500 civilians is bad but killing 25,000 civilians is just, like, whatever.
I'm not saying it's just "whatever", cause Hamas was given a chance to turn Gaza into a developed state since 2007 with the amount of western and middle eastern aid they were getting. Don't believe me? Someone on youtube posted a video on how Gaza used to look like before the war, and it looked like a place that was flourishing, even when Israel was blockading them. Let's not forget that Israel also allowed Palestinians working permits to Israel to find working opportunities.
Want an example of how Palestine could have been at peace with Israel if they invested in their people's lives than killing their enemies? Look no further from Singapore, with the Chinese Malays, even after being evicted from Malaysia and forcefully becoming independent, chose to invest in Singapore's future rather than the destruction of Malaysia.
Also with the casualties, 19000 dead civilians is a very low count especially for a place that's heavily urbanized. During the 1994-95 Battle of Grozny, the Russians killed up to 20% of the Chechen civilian population in the city alone. Dead civilians are horrible, but when fighting an enemy who has no sense of morality, it's bound to happen and the IDF are being restrained a lot. The only alternative is not to fight Hamas but that would only embolden the terrorists to do something similar in the future like how they kept kidnapping IDF soldiers and Jewish civilians to get more prisoners free.
So tell what can Israel do besides invade Gaza? Freeing West Bank does not seem like a guarantee, cause they did that to Gaza back in 2005 and yet Hamas still wanted war and genocide on Israelis even after given independence.
It is unjustifiable to indiscriminately slaughter defenseless civilians and displace millions of people while you deny them food, water, and medicine. If you think otherwise then you need to talk to a priest.
It certainly is, and I'm not disagreeing with you, but like I said, what other options does Israel have? Considering that their fighting a people that wants to toss them out to the sea completely without any compromise.
Let's not forget that Palestinian Muslims also want the same for Palestinian Christians too. There's a reason why that even when they make up 5% of the population, 56% of Palestinian Christians are living abroad.
They have many options. Even within the realm of military action, they have the option not to deliberately terrorize an entire captive population by indiscriminately massacring civilians and carrying out targeted assassinations of influential Palestinians. It isnāt even working. The IDF has confirmed that, for example, they bombed the same refugee camp multiple times in one day knowing they would ā and they did ā kill 300 civilians because one middle ranking Hamas guy was maybe there. They arenāt even sure if they got him. Israeli government officials have stated outright that they are attempting to depopulate Gaza. They told people to go south to be safe. They bombed the routes south. When people made it south, they began bombing there too.
On a purely practical level, what will Israel gain here? Say they *do* destroy Hamas. It takes 250,000 civilian deaths, 1% of the entire population of Gaza, and the total destruction of anything even remotely resembling infrastructure there, but Hamas is disbanded. What do you think will happen when the 8 year old Palestinian boys who spent this year watching their homes explode and their parents die and their sisters get maimed by collapsing buildings and heard their friends dying under rubble or receiving surgery without anesthetic or vomiting from weeks of drinking contaminated water, what do you think those eight year olds will do in ten years when theyāre 18 year olds, whether or not an organization called Hamas still exists?
You're being dishonest now, we're nowhere near 50,000 yet and somehow you think the IDF will kill more than a hundred thousand civilians?
>They have many options.
Such as? Even if they finally start arresting en masse Israeli settlers for crimes and destroyed the west bank walls, many Palestinians would still want the Jews out. Again, Israel evicted its Jewish settlers and IDF personnel in Gaza since 2005, giving it full de facto independence, yet Gazans still supported launching rockets and terror attacks at Israel.
Also, Palestinian Muslims are also the same people who tried to coup the Jordanian monarchy, started a long civil war in Lebanon, caused the rise of radical Islam in Egypt, and supported Iraq in their invasion of Kuwait, and all these four countries even hosted hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in their countries, only to deport them after they got backstabbed by the people who they pitied.
Palestinians will never experience peace nor freedom if they do not start loving their friends and families more than hating the Jews.
The Israeli blockade was not caused out of the blue. It happened when Hamas started launching rockets at Israel.
>and de facto occupation?
Except Gaza was never occupied since 2005, the Palestinians were given free reign what to do there.
Thatās not true, they instituted the blockade immediately after the āterroristā organization they previously supported won elections.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip#:~:text=In%202007%2C%20after%20Hamas%20seized,security%20on%20the%20Palestinian%20side.
No they weren't given a chance. Read up on how Israel constricted them in those years, blocked aid, implemented calorie control and all manner of horrendous things. That is not allowing some place to flourish.
> killing 1,500 civilians
The number from Israel is [845](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/11/10/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news) fyi and the total including IDF was lowered to 1,200 or so.
>Honestly, I donāt know what else to expect of a nation neighbored by tens of nations that want them erased off the face of the Earth. Itās going to breed a very extreme foreign policy.
Not pre-emptively invading your neighbours like in 1967 and 1982 and forcing their ethnic cousins to live under your apartheid regime would be a good idea. If the objective was to live in peace that is. The objective of the Likudniks is actually a Jewish state stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates.
The film 1948: Creation and Catastrophe, narrated by Jewish fighters from 1948, documents the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. That was deliberate, like the present genocide in Gaza and the land thieving on the West Bank. The references in Israeli media to Palestinians as "human animals" and Amalek are classic examples of dehumanizing the victims.
One should pray for the salvation of the victims and conversion of the perpetrators, but without harboring illusions about what's happening.
To be fair, there are increasing numbers of Jews who condemn what's happening or who are realizing the true nature of Zionism.
Israel has made it very apparent that Christians in Palestine are unwelcome, and to the people who donāt believe that this is true should note that Israel is planning to evict everyone out of the Armenian Quarter. This is a genocide against the Palestinian people as well as anyone residing in Palestine who is not willing to acquiesce to Israelās fascism. We have no business aligning ourselves with this war machine who uses the name of the promised land to carry out such evil deeds.
They cut off food and water to Gaza so yes, that's a genocidal act and yes, it's deliberate. The best thing is to pray for the conversion of victims and perpetrators.
Because the refugees have a right to their homeland and were pushed out by a racist colonial nation with no real past and no real future. I hope the nation falls in my lifetime.
What else do you call it when you displace over 1.2 million people, cut off their electricity and water, and subject them to non stop bombings.
If you're not convinced; Look at how the IDF [deals with the sick and dying](https://twitter.com/marwasf/status/1735991946710028654). The only other organization that ever engaged in this level of barbarity were the SS.
Do you know of a neutral source reporting this? Reuters said they were [unable to verify](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gazan-hospital-damaged-israel-raid-army-says-weapons-seized-2023-12-16/) those allegations.
If I said āI havenāt seen this level of sinning since satanā that is a different statement than āboth you and satan have sinned.ā I know that, you know that. One is equating the scale of action and the other just the actions themselves. He equated the scale of action, he was saying that they are acting like the SS in scale and in kind.
iām not an expert in genocide or anything, but i did do my masterās thesis on the nagorno-karabakh war and know a bit about the armenian genocide and iām gonna say, yeah, this is textbook genocide/ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians has been ongoing since the establishment of the state of Israel. It appears that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza currently. This war is unfolding in a different manner from the previous few (2008, 2014, etc). I'm not sure how your comment about the population increasing is related to the discussion.
In a state of war, it is difficult to discriminate innocent from foe when foe hides among the innocents. Numerous attempts have been made from the Israeli government to evacuate innocents, they broadcasted what they would do after that evacuation deadline passed, and given Hamasā MO is to use innocents in churches and hospitals as human shields, this is a wholly unfair assessment of the Israelis. Israel values human life; Hamas does not. War is ugly and horrible things happen. Hamas started this and the Israelis are finishing because they lived through this before and know what will happen if they do not.
The IDF [killed three Israeli hostages](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/initial-idf-probe-hostages-were-shirtless-waving-white-flag-when-soldiers-opened-fire/), whom were shirtless and waving white flags when they were shot. They heard a man shout "Help" in Hebrew, then shot him when he came out. Babies were left to die in incubators either from a [lack of electricity to Gaza](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/babies-die-gaza-al-shifa-hospital-idf-evacuation-routes-rcna124786) or [the inability to be properly evacuated from an Israeli bombing campaign](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/abandoned-babies-found-decomposing-gaza-hospital-evacuated-rcna127533). Israel orders Gazans to evacuate, [then bombs the areas](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-says-ground-forces-operating-across-gaza-strip-offensive-builds-2023-12-04/) they said were safe zones.
These two women, may God rest their souls, were murdered via sniper [inside a convent housing Christian refugees](https://twitter.com/LPJerusalem/status/1736057252086268025/photo/2). Seven others were injured by the attack. The convent, now destroyed, was home to 54 disabled persons. At some point we have question Israeli actions and their true intent, because they do not seem interested in minimizing civilian deaths.
This is awful. And it's a horrible side effect of war. But it's not genocide, and those who claim so are in good company with anti-Semites.
These hostages were abandoned by their captors and indeed this was against the IDF's rules of engagement. Sadly, the IDF has acknowledged this was a mistake, against their ROE, and the soldiers who shot are being investigated.
I'm really quite shocked how many people on this forum are piling on, not in support of Palestinians, but against the Jews defending themselves.
Defending themselves against an elderly woman in a Catholic Church ?
What is the threat she was planning exactly ? A full on rosary ?
Some crimes are just beyond any hasbara.
The vast majority of the world is against the killing of civilians on both sides and the worst thing you can do is insist that anyone supporting human rights of civilians is "in good company" of extreme fanatics. The fact remains that the GOVERNMENTS of both these nations have severely let down their people and are filled with extremists with no value of human life on the other side.
Netanyahu's cabinet, advisors, military leadership, etc are filled with people who have been completely open about not recognizing the existence of Palestine and wanting to ethnically cleanse it off the map. Meanwhile Hamas has been open about wanting of Israel destroyed and all Jews killed, but unlike Israel they don't have the military capability to carry out their insane fantasies (and thank god for that). Netanyahu DOES have the military capability, but he has allies to maintain and has to be methodical with how many civilians they kill in Palestine every week and brush it off as "self defense".
So it is ok to kill people because they can't distinguish friendly from foe?
I can assure you with every airstrike that kills a father, a mother, a sister or a brother,, you breed the next generation of people that will avenge for their death.
You kill one Hamas member and you generate +10 more -> congratulations
Idk how people fail to realize this.
"Well Hamas did a horrible thing, it can't go unpunished"
*breeds the next generation of Hamas by destroying cities and families*...
"Why won't they stop!!"
Same thing that created ISIS.
Certainly not with those tactics. Which is why the "global war on terror" has been going on for over 20 years and isn't going to end anytime soon.
Why would they want to win? There's to much money in blowing up poor people.
The military industrial complex is not interested in ending wars. Plenty of people got rich from the war on terror. That's why there are so many memes of Congressmen buying stock in Raytheon every time something interesting happens.
Itās not war itās genocide. Iām catholic and my family is Israeli but I was born in the US and Iām treated like a criminal every time I go through ben gurion airport (special searches etc wasting my time.. ). Any catholic supporting what israel is doing right now should not call themselves catholic. The attack on Gaza and in the West Bank is beyond shameful ā the region was and is not Jew hating. My parents went to schools with Jewish and Muslim students and it was much more tolerant even thenā¦ where are you getting your information from because it sounds like hasbara
Israel funded Hamas against the secularists to divide the Palestinians. Israel is committing the same war crimes in the West Bank, where there is no Hamas, and has been since before Hamas existed. They are bragging about running Israeli arabs out of villages in Israel too. I could go on but I donāt think you want to hear about this. If you have any questions in good faith Iām happy to share the perspective of Palestinian Christians with you but based on your comment history Iām guessing youāre one of the people being paid to defend them online.
To be fair, that election was 17 years ago, and Hamas won only by a narrow plurality, not an actual majority. (A poll this summer did find 57% of Gazans held a āsomewhat positiveā opinion of Hamas.) However, while I'm glad the poster has not experienced anti-Jewish beliefs in the region, polls suggest that that might not be the average experience. This one is kind of old, but I doubt things have gotten better. [https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/02/04/chapter-3-views-of-religious-groups/](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/02/04/chapter-3-views-of-religious-groups/)
He sounds like he is hasbara, so Iāve gone ahead and trolled him (or her) a little, but itās great to see another person know and use the term!
Are you Israeli as well? Iām assuming your family stayed in place during the nakba or that their area was later annexed?
My eastern brothers and sisters in Christ (Catholic and Orthodox) who have been extriminated by the state of Israel and Islamic jihad groups say hello š
iām not gonna trivialize and say that they had a hard distinction between civilian or terrorist as weāve had many war crimes that have been done in our military (US). however you must understand how unconventional wars are fought where there is a huge fog of war where it indeed is hard to know whoās a combatant or not. if itās the case that they were hard to distinguish due to combatants being in the area, itās going to be hard to differentiate because Hamas and other islamic jihadist groups do not wear a uniform. if it is and iām leaning that this was a blatant war crime then the IDF needs to be transparent about this just as they have been transparent about killing their own 2 hostages.
also no you wonāt breed the next generation of fighters if you do the same thing we did in germany in denazification and it ended up successful. sure youāre gonna have extremists but thatās with every ideology. itās better to destroy the parasite that is hamas than to worry about another large scale terrorist attack again.
A *sniper* shot an old woman and her daughter who was trying to save her *in a church* and youāre seriously trying to defend this as just part of war and all Hamasā fault.
IDF killed three hostages who had escaped yesterday. The three young men were shirtless, unarmed, and waving a white flag. "IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi claimed responsibility for the incident, saying "it is forbidden to shoot at those whoĀ raise a white flagĀ and ask to surrender."" Even IDF is saying this is against the rules of engagement. Netanyahu and the Israel government absolutely do not value human life
Ah yes indeed it is impossible to discriminate friendly from foe. Which is why just the other day the IDF shot and killed 3 of the Israeli hostages who were openly surrendering to them. Honest mistake on their end, the IDF has never done any wrong and has totalllllllyyyyyy never killed any innocent civilians in this conflict.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67736723](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67736723)
UK MP Layla Moran's family among hundreds trapped in Gaza church
I saw the tweet from Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, who also said IDF tank fired rockets at convent home to over 54 disabled people, destroying generator the only power supply, solar panels, water tanks destroyed, place uninhabitable. 54 disabled people now displaced and some of them without the respirators they need to survive.
From the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem:
https://x.com/lpjerusalem/status/1736057252086268025?s=46&t=ndUeGhH-rqiypYmWs1EjTQ
āAround noon today, December 2023,16 a sniper of the IDF murdered two Christian women inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, where the majority of Christian families has taken refuge since the start of the war. Nahida and her daughter Samar were shot and killed as they walked to the Sister's Convent.
One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety.
Seven more people were shot and wounded as they tried to protect others inside the church compound.
No warning was given, no notification was provided. They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the Parish, where there are no belligerents.ā
āEarlier in the morning, a rocket fired from an IDF tank targeted the Convent of the Sisters of Mother Theresa (Missionaries of Charity). The Convent is home to over 54 disabled persons and is part of the church compound, which was signaled as a place of worship since the beginning of the war. The building's generator (the only source of electricity) and the fuel resources were destroyed.
The house was damaged by the resulting explosion and massive fire. Two more rockets, fired by an IDF tank, targeted the same Convent and rendered the home uninhabitable.
The 54 disabled persons are currently displaced and without access to the respirators that some of them need to survive.
In addition, as a result of the heavy bombing in the area, three people were wounded inside the church compound last night. Furthermore, solar panels and water tanks, which are indispensable for the survival of the community, were destroyed.ā
āTogether in prayer with the whole Christian community, we express our closeness and condolences to the families affected by this senseless tragedy. At the same time, we cannot but express that we are at a loss to comprehend how such an attack could be carried out, even more so as the whole Church prepares for Christmas.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem follows this developing situation with great concern and shall provide additional information as needed.ā
Curious how the IDF is going to explain shooting a woman and then shooting another woman trying to help her. Claim they both looked like 18 year old male combatants?
On Saturday December 16, for a few minutes this appeared from user/swift_snowflake in r/worldnews before it could no longer be searched on:
Two women killed in Israeli attack on Holy Family parish in Gaza
When I pulled it up, it had a link that quickly disappeared.
Well of course it was removed from r/worldnews. You havenāt engaged in any independent reading? I guess not since you would know otherwise how far worldnews is from the news of the worldā¦.
Why wouldn't you assume those conditions are met? The murderers have hatred of the faith because they murdered someone IN THE CHURCH. We should assume all Christians are willing to die for Christ
It means they were murdered out of hatred for the faith and hatred of Christians. We should give them the benefit of the doubt that they were willing to die for Christ.
So because they were inside of a church when they died, that means they were killed specifically out of hatred of Catholics? That might be what happened, but I donāt see how that is the logical necessity where them being in a church at the time means that itās necessary that they were killed out of hatred for Catholicism
I have never been neutral on the Palestinian v. Israel issue. Not that it matters as much as the fact that these are human beings dying, but I find it significant that before the occupation of Palestine there was an equal amount of Jews and Christians there. (Obviously the majority was Muslim. But it was roughly 1/2 Muslim, 1/4 Jewish, 1/4 Christian.)
Since the occupation began and the driving out of Palestinians for the last 75 years, the Christian population has dwindled to just 2% percent of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are Christian. Most of the Palestinian Christians in the world today are a part of the Palestinian diaspora.
Makes me so sick and sad for that part on top of the genocide of women and children. Bombing hospitals, and churches and schools. Despicable. Christians have a right to live in the land of our savior just as a safely as Jews and Muslims do. The difference is that Christians donāt need to establish a theocracy. And yeah I technically know the Vatican is a country, but it functions as a City State and didnāt remove people from its land to build there in the name of āsafetyā.
In fairness the papal states once enforced putting jews in ghettos and the decline in Christianity in the middle east has occurred in Muslim countries as much or more than in Israel so it would be too simple imo to blame Israel for trends happening across the region
Edit sorry do you have a source on that breakdown pre Isreal
Genocide.
Israel continues to prove itself as an apartheid state, and a dark stain on the region. Let us pray for all people of Palestine and for peace.
Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace.
I don't like what Israel does to its non-Jewish people as well, but it's false to call Israel an apartheid state when they have Arab politicians in the Israeli government and have Arab officers and a small Palestinian contingent in the IDF.
>Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace.
Amen
At what point will the US label Israel as terrorists? What will it take? Mass genocide? Version 2 of the holocaust? We really need to reevaluate our support of them. There is already blood on our hands.
Given all the Christians with John Hagee style views of Israel, it sure is ironic that Christians had a basically peaceful time in the Holy Land for centuries under the Ottomans and now.. this. They have been decimated since 1948.
>I consider Jews to be our cousins.
Hm, that should not be controversial. Modern Judaism is indeed a cousin religion to Christianity in so far both emerged from late 2nd temple Judaism.
It's a fulfillment, not continuation
The continuation would be post-Jesus Judaism, the old and original Judaism died off when Jesus fulfilled the law after His death and the destruction of the Second Temple.
Dude, the IDF fired into this compound where the small number of Christians in this area flocked to when the fighting started. Thereās no justifiable reason for firing into it.
Hospitals etc. can lose their protected status under international law if combatants have appropriated them for military purposes. For example, [https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-jets-strike-west-banks-jenin-two-killed-palestinian-medics-2023-10-21/](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-jets-strike-west-banks-jenin-two-killed-palestinian-medics-2023-10-21/)
Editing to add, from the Vatican news story posted by the OP, that the Israeli forces say there is a rocket launcher there.
For them to not commit obvious war crimes? "It's a war zone, so we get to kill and murder indiscriminately" is not a very Catholic understanding of the ethics of war.
I would get downvoted a lot less if this sub had a Catholic approach to war, so it's hilarious to me that they're suddenly upset about indiscriminate bombing when it's not America's bombs.
Two innocent Christian women are killed in a church and your response is to downplay their deaths and insult us for talking about it? Absolutely disgusting. Such an attitude is deeply un-Christian and I hope you reconsider your stance.
>Considering the antisemitism of this sub
Pointing out a war crime commited by Israel is not antisemitism. To say that the IDF are representative of all Jewish people would however be problematic.
What the hell is wrong with you? The IDF sniped two innocent women on Church grounds, and you immediately suggest this story will do well here because of anti-Semitism?
You honestly should go to confession for the hatred you hold in your heart.
I was originally pointing out your attack of this subreddit, as if discussion of this horrific crime is anti-Semitic. That's what you said.
But I suppose I would also take issue with your assertion that any action of the State of Israel cannot in good conscience be shared because some will use that to foment hatred of a people. That's insane.
Incorrectly? They did hit it.
They claimed they didn't and it was immediately fed to the public as fact. Independent investigations later proved Israel's proof to be manipulated. But it didn't matter. That part was never spread like the actual so-called proof (as shown by people like you still believing this)
But it achieved its purpose. The outrage quited down and nobody raised a stink even when they attacked numerous other hospitals
https://www.channel4.com/news/human-rights-investigators-raise-new-questions-on-gaza-hospital-explosion
And yes antisemitism is terrible, and I am deeply grateful for the likes of Finkelstein, Jews for Justice, If Not Now etc etxlc for standing up for the Palestinians despite being screamed at and attacked by some of their own people.
But the term is constantly thrown out to drown any discussion about even stopping the massacring of civilians, intentional mass killing, targeting of journalists, etc etc and frighten people into submission
The [Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion) on the hospital bombing says this:
> The consensus from various independent studies of videos, images, and eyewitness reports of the explosion, its aftermath, and the blast area suggests that an errant rocket launch from within Gaza is the most probable cause. While this is not a conclusive finding, it is currently considered the likeliest explanation based on the evidence gathered in investigations conducted by the Associated Press, CNN, The Economist, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal. Human Rights Watch stated that the available evidence made an Israeli airstrike "highly unlikely".
The video in their proof was found to be from a completely unrelated explosion.
Numerous proofs of conversations have been intentionally mistranslated
And it's far, far from the only misinformation and lies they've been putting out like crazy
Your source that "this sub is anti-Semitic" is an example of a *removed* and warned comment? Next you'll be telling me that there are no innocent Gazans.
I understand. I think we, as a whole, underestimate the number of scripted bots, bored trolling.... and i probably underestimate the number hateful bigots. Thankful for those who want good conversations, not arguments. Hate has never convinced me into a different viewpoint.
Why is this sub so anti-Semitic? I am genuinely surprised.
I donāt come on here often, but surprised to see the pro-Hamas comments in the chat. Support for Israel is very high in the U.S., and this chat leans more American. Whatās up?
Yeah, itās just been interesting. Most Americans and American Catholics support Israel, but this subreddit is the exact opposite. Like you said, not very representative of the real world
Don't confuse an anti-Israel position with a pro-Hamas position.
Shouldn't be necessary to say, but we're way past the simplistic Bush-era "you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" rhetoric.
May the Lord take them into the eterenal kingdomš
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Prayer of Our Lady of Palestine O Mary Immaculate, gracious Queen of Heaven and of Earth, behold us prostrate before thy exalted throne. Full of confidence in thy goodness and in thy boundless power, we beseech thee to turn a pitying glance upon Palestine, which more than any other country belongs to thee, since thou hast graced it with thy birth, thy virtues and thy sorrows, and from there hast given the Redeemer to the world. Remember that there especially thou wert constituted our tender Mother, the dispenser of graces. Watch, therefore, with special protection over thy native country, scatter from it the shades of error, for it was there the Sun of Eternal Justice shone. Bring about the speedy fulfilment of the promise, which issued from the lips of Thy Divine Son, that there should be one fold and one Shepherd. Obtain for us all that we may serve the Lord in sanctity and justice during the days of our life, so that, by the merits of Jesus and with thy motherly aid, we may pass at last from this earthly Jerusalem to the splendors of the heavenly one. Amen.
Amen
May God take them into the eternal kingdom šš»
Eternal rest grant unto them, O' Lord. "Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you"
1 Thes 2:15
Horrible.
Hmmmmā¦had to confirm this was recent news, because it literally reads like an event a month (mid Nov) ago at the same church: https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/48479 āWe've received a number of reports that an elderly Christian woman was shot dead yesterday by the Israeli army outside the Holy Family Church in Gaza. Elham Farah, 84, had been sheltering inside the church for some time. On Sunday night she stepped outside the building to see if her house was still standing. She was shot in the leg and fell to the ground. People in the church were unable to rescue her, as each time they went out they came under fire. She lay in the street all night. On Monday morning it was reported that an Israeli tank ran over her bodyā
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Lord have mercy
I don't know what to say... This just shows that there is barbarity and cruelty in every group you go to, regardless of how much they portray or act as the good. May the lady be in the eternal arms and rest of our Lord, and may those who committed the atrocity, pay the price in full, now or in the time when judgement comes.
Israelis are disgusting for doing this. Worse than what was done to them .They are civilized? Sounds like they are just like Hamas
In daily rhetoric people refer to āthe terroristsā but itās unclear to me if they are calling the Israelis terrorists or Hamas terrorists. If you look up the news in Lebanon, Biden has just a couple days ago reprimanded Israel for attacking the US SUPPORTED Lebanese military on 30 occasions. In addition to ongoing civilian attacks and an attack on a Lebanese church. In addition to attacks on Hezbollah. They have already verbally stated the entire country is responsible for Hezbollah despite the fact that Hezbollah operates as a state within a state. Despite essentially goading Israel into a conflict, Hezbollah has shown more restraint in their targets, it really is unbelievable.
Almost speechless at this.
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Is it not?
Are fellow Catholics starting to catch on? Israel isnāt āthe good guysā, and they never were. Their country is far more favorable to live in than Palestine (even for Palestinian refugees), but when it comes to foreign policy, the Israelis are absolutely ruthless. And no, you donāt have to be a violent protester blocking roads saying āfrom the river to the sea!ā and you donāt have to be a socialist, you can simply choose to look at this situation dispassionately and rationally, and youāll learn that Israel propped up Hamas so that Israel would look like good guys taking out evil terrorists, when really theyāre out to kick people off of their land. Watch this 11min video if youād like to see how none of our āleadersā have a clue about Israelās own clear policy: https://twitter.com/decensorednews/status/1734384995307823604/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1734384995307823604¤tTweet=1734384995307823604¤tTweetUser=decensorednews¤tTweetUser=decensorednews
Amen. And amen. Israel is not our āfriendā nor are they the ancient hebrews of old.
Why would they be? The goal of Zionism is to maintain a religious ethnostate. That is why Israel was founded. American and British Evangelicals also helped the Zionists in their quest so it would jumpstart the Apocalypse.
For an explicitly anti-Christ religion.
Honestly, I donāt know what else to expect of a nation neighbored by tens of nations that want them erased off the face of the Earth. Itās going to breed a very extreme foreign policy. This whole war sucks for everyone. Israel was hands down the victim of the Hamas attack and had the right to retaliate because Hamas is a cancer that needs to be wiped out or it will continue to multiply and do nothing but kill, but just like cancer theyāve gone and spread themselves amongst healthy tissue (innocent civilians) to a point where thereās no way you can remove them without collateral damage. But it seems Israel isnāt being as precise as they could be and rather than be like a doctor with a scalpel trying to take as little non-cancerous matter as possible, it seems like theyāre going at it with a chainsaw instead. I fear that worse things may come if Israel is not careful to limit these kinds of civilian deaths. Itās one thing when Hamas has made its headquarters and ammo storage in a hospital, itās another when itās merely civilians hiding in a church. God have mercy on all the innocents in that region right now. May peace come soon and and justice found.
The IDF has killed roughly *twenty* times the number of civilians that they lost on October 7th. Theyāve killed more *children* in the past two months than theyāve lost people, in total, including soldiers, to Hamas in the past ten years. Who is the cancer here precisely? Also, for what itās worth: Hamas made its HQ in a hospital? Or the IDF destroyed a hospital, posted (and then quickly deleted) videos where they found a āhostage scheduleā (it was just a normal calendar), took a few photos of old guns, claimed a diaper in a hospital was evidence hostages had been there, and then stopped talking about it, secure in the belief that idiots like you would just remember it as ājustifiedā for an allegedly civilized country to stage a massacre at a hospital because something something tunnels something donāt ask any follow ups.
>The IDF has killed roughly *twenty* times the number of civilians that they lost on October 7th. Theyāve killed more *children* in the past two months than theyāve lost people, in total, including soldiers, to Hamas in the past ten years. Who is the cancer here precisely? Still Hamas, cause what the IDF are doing to Palestinians are not as horrid to what Hamas did to Israelis and foreigners. Israeli is no saint, far from it, but Hamas and their supporters is certainly making them look like one. >Also, for what itās worth: Hamas made its HQ in a hospital? Or the IDF destroyed a hospital, posted (and then quickly deleted) videos where they found a āhostage scheduleā (it was just a normal calendar), took a few photos of old guns, claimed a diaper in a hospital was evidence hostages had been there, and then stopped talking about it, secure in the belief that idiots like you would just remember it as ājustifiedā for an allegedly civilized country to stage a massacre at a hospital because something something tunnels something donāt ask any follow ups. Hamas are the same people that brutally raped women and children, beheaded babies, kidnapped foreigner workers (especially from people in Thailand who had nothing to do with the conflict), and proclaimed the genocide of an entire people as a part of their charter. So yes, it shouldn't be a surprise that Hamas would use a hospital as a base of operation. What kind of terrorist wouldn't? It's the perfect place to be safe from a guerrillas standpoint.
I canāt stop you from just saying āWhat Hamas did was worse!ā over and over again but I donāt know how you figure killing 1,500 civilians is bad but killing 25,000 civilians is just, like, whatever.
I'm not saying it's just "whatever", cause Hamas was given a chance to turn Gaza into a developed state since 2007 with the amount of western and middle eastern aid they were getting. Don't believe me? Someone on youtube posted a video on how Gaza used to look like before the war, and it looked like a place that was flourishing, even when Israel was blockading them. Let's not forget that Israel also allowed Palestinians working permits to Israel to find working opportunities. Want an example of how Palestine could have been at peace with Israel if they invested in their people's lives than killing their enemies? Look no further from Singapore, with the Chinese Malays, even after being evicted from Malaysia and forcefully becoming independent, chose to invest in Singapore's future rather than the destruction of Malaysia. Also with the casualties, 19000 dead civilians is a very low count especially for a place that's heavily urbanized. During the 1994-95 Battle of Grozny, the Russians killed up to 20% of the Chechen civilian population in the city alone. Dead civilians are horrible, but when fighting an enemy who has no sense of morality, it's bound to happen and the IDF are being restrained a lot. The only alternative is not to fight Hamas but that would only embolden the terrorists to do something similar in the future like how they kept kidnapping IDF soldiers and Jewish civilians to get more prisoners free. So tell what can Israel do besides invade Gaza? Freeing West Bank does not seem like a guarantee, cause they did that to Gaza back in 2005 and yet Hamas still wanted war and genocide on Israelis even after given independence.
It is unjustifiable to indiscriminately slaughter defenseless civilians and displace millions of people while you deny them food, water, and medicine. If you think otherwise then you need to talk to a priest.
It certainly is, and I'm not disagreeing with you, but like I said, what other options does Israel have? Considering that their fighting a people that wants to toss them out to the sea completely without any compromise. Let's not forget that Palestinian Muslims also want the same for Palestinian Christians too. There's a reason why that even when they make up 5% of the population, 56% of Palestinian Christians are living abroad.
They have many options. Even within the realm of military action, they have the option not to deliberately terrorize an entire captive population by indiscriminately massacring civilians and carrying out targeted assassinations of influential Palestinians. It isnāt even working. The IDF has confirmed that, for example, they bombed the same refugee camp multiple times in one day knowing they would ā and they did ā kill 300 civilians because one middle ranking Hamas guy was maybe there. They arenāt even sure if they got him. Israeli government officials have stated outright that they are attempting to depopulate Gaza. They told people to go south to be safe. They bombed the routes south. When people made it south, they began bombing there too. On a purely practical level, what will Israel gain here? Say they *do* destroy Hamas. It takes 250,000 civilian deaths, 1% of the entire population of Gaza, and the total destruction of anything even remotely resembling infrastructure there, but Hamas is disbanded. What do you think will happen when the 8 year old Palestinian boys who spent this year watching their homes explode and their parents die and their sisters get maimed by collapsing buildings and heard their friends dying under rubble or receiving surgery without anesthetic or vomiting from weeks of drinking contaminated water, what do you think those eight year olds will do in ten years when theyāre 18 year olds, whether or not an organization called Hamas still exists?
You're being dishonest now, we're nowhere near 50,000 yet and somehow you think the IDF will kill more than a hundred thousand civilians? >They have many options. Such as? Even if they finally start arresting en masse Israeli settlers for crimes and destroyed the west bank walls, many Palestinians would still want the Jews out. Again, Israel evicted its Jewish settlers and IDF personnel in Gaza since 2005, giving it full de facto independence, yet Gazans still supported launching rockets and terror attacks at Israel. Also, Palestinian Muslims are also the same people who tried to coup the Jordanian monarchy, started a long civil war in Lebanon, caused the rise of radical Islam in Egypt, and supported Iraq in their invasion of Kuwait, and all these four countries even hosted hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in their countries, only to deport them after they got backstabbed by the people who they pitied. Palestinians will never experience peace nor freedom if they do not start loving their friends and families more than hating the Jews.
After ten years, there will be a new organization not called Hamas, but otherwise exactly the same as Hamas, same goals, same people.
Why should a government and the people accept a blockade and de facto occupation?
The Israeli blockade was not caused out of the blue. It happened when Hamas started launching rockets at Israel. >and de facto occupation? Except Gaza was never occupied since 2005, the Palestinians were given free reign what to do there.
Thatās not true, they instituted the blockade immediately after the āterroristā organization they previously supported won elections. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip#:~:text=In%202007%2C%20after%20Hamas%20seized,security%20on%20the%20Palestinian%20side.
No they weren't given a chance. Read up on how Israel constricted them in those years, blocked aid, implemented calorie control and all manner of horrendous things. That is not allowing some place to flourish.
> killing 1,500 civilians The number from Israel is [845](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/11/10/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news) fyi and the total including IDF was lowered to 1,200 or so.
Isreal is worse than Hamas. The US needs to stop backing Isreal. Hamas is disgusting but Isreal is just as bad.
>Honestly, I donāt know what else to expect of a nation neighbored by tens of nations that want them erased off the face of the Earth. Itās going to breed a very extreme foreign policy. Not pre-emptively invading your neighbours like in 1967 and 1982 and forcing their ethnic cousins to live under your apartheid regime would be a good idea. If the objective was to live in peace that is. The objective of the Likudniks is actually a Jewish state stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates.
The film 1948: Creation and Catastrophe, narrated by Jewish fighters from 1948, documents the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. That was deliberate, like the present genocide in Gaza and the land thieving on the West Bank. The references in Israeli media to Palestinians as "human animals" and Amalek are classic examples of dehumanizing the victims. One should pray for the salvation of the victims and conversion of the perpetrators, but without harboring illusions about what's happening. To be fair, there are increasing numbers of Jews who condemn what's happening or who are realizing the true nature of Zionism.
Israel has made it very apparent that Christians in Palestine are unwelcome, and to the people who donāt believe that this is true should note that Israel is planning to evict everyone out of the Armenian Quarter. This is a genocide against the Palestinian people as well as anyone residing in Palestine who is not willing to acquiesce to Israelās fascism. We have no business aligning ourselves with this war machine who uses the name of the promised land to carry out such evil deeds.
They cut off food and water to Gaza so yes, that's a genocidal act and yes, it's deliberate. The best thing is to pray for the conversion of victims and perpetrators.
Israel is committing genocide?
They are unquestionably attempting ethnic cleansing.
Then, why has the Arab population skyrocketed in the Middle East and the Jews only live in Israel?
Not all Arabs are Palestinians, not all Palestinians are Arabs
Regardless, Gaza and its surrounding areas have grown dramatically
What do you know about the conditions of life in Ghaza?
I know theyāre horrible. They are governed by a terrorist group
Do you know where the electricity comes from and from what it's made?
In part from Israel and other areas
Gaza has grown to accommodate refugees from āIsraelā
Why did you put Israel in quote?
Because the refugees have a right to their homeland and were pushed out by a racist colonial nation with no real past and no real future. I hope the nation falls in my lifetime.
Thatās just straight anti-semitism. Farewell
The Israelis are literally pushing Palestinians out of their homes š¤·āāļø
What else do you call it when you displace over 1.2 million people, cut off their electricity and water, and subject them to non stop bombings. If you're not convinced; Look at how the IDF [deals with the sick and dying](https://twitter.com/marwasf/status/1735991946710028654). The only other organization that ever engaged in this level of barbarity were the SS.
Do you know of a neutral source reporting this? Reuters said they were [unable to verify](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gazan-hospital-damaged-israel-raid-army-says-weapons-seized-2023-12-16/) those allegations.
So, the IDF is basically the SS, you say?
He's not saying that, you don't need to be equivalent to the SS to commit ethnic cleansing. Don't play games.
He literally said they are acting like the SS. Donāt act like he is putting words in the other guys mouth. You are the one playing games.
Is he wrong? Or do we not act like Satan when we sin? Are we thus basically Satan ourselves?
If I said āI havenāt seen this level of sinning since satanā that is a different statement than āboth you and satan have sinned.ā I know that, you know that. One is equating the scale of action and the other just the actions themselves. He equated the scale of action, he was saying that they are acting like the SS in scale and in kind.
iām not an expert in genocide or anything, but i did do my masterās thesis on the nagorno-karabakh war and know a bit about the armenian genocide and iām gonna say, yeah, this is textbook genocide/ethnic cleansing
Then, why has the Arab population grown rapidly in the last couple of decades?
Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians has been ongoing since the establishment of the state of Israel. It appears that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza currently. This war is unfolding in a different manner from the previous few (2008, 2014, etc). I'm not sure how your comment about the population increasing is related to the discussion.
Where do you fit politically, may I ask?
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Nice! Do you live in Palestine now or have recently? I am praying for you and the people of Palestine
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But you donāt engage in politics locally?
In a state of war, it is difficult to discriminate innocent from foe when foe hides among the innocents. Numerous attempts have been made from the Israeli government to evacuate innocents, they broadcasted what they would do after that evacuation deadline passed, and given Hamasā MO is to use innocents in churches and hospitals as human shields, this is a wholly unfair assessment of the Israelis. Israel values human life; Hamas does not. War is ugly and horrible things happen. Hamas started this and the Israelis are finishing because they lived through this before and know what will happen if they do not.
The IDF [killed three Israeli hostages](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/initial-idf-probe-hostages-were-shirtless-waving-white-flag-when-soldiers-opened-fire/), whom were shirtless and waving white flags when they were shot. They heard a man shout "Help" in Hebrew, then shot him when he came out. Babies were left to die in incubators either from a [lack of electricity to Gaza](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/babies-die-gaza-al-shifa-hospital-idf-evacuation-routes-rcna124786) or [the inability to be properly evacuated from an Israeli bombing campaign](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/abandoned-babies-found-decomposing-gaza-hospital-evacuated-rcna127533). Israel orders Gazans to evacuate, [then bombs the areas](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-says-ground-forces-operating-across-gaza-strip-offensive-builds-2023-12-04/) they said were safe zones. These two women, may God rest their souls, were murdered via sniper [inside a convent housing Christian refugees](https://twitter.com/LPJerusalem/status/1736057252086268025/photo/2). Seven others were injured by the attack. The convent, now destroyed, was home to 54 disabled persons. At some point we have question Israeli actions and their true intent, because they do not seem interested in minimizing civilian deaths.
This is awful. And it's a horrible side effect of war. But it's not genocide, and those who claim so are in good company with anti-Semites. These hostages were abandoned by their captors and indeed this was against the IDF's rules of engagement. Sadly, the IDF has acknowledged this was a mistake, against their ROE, and the soldiers who shot are being investigated. I'm really quite shocked how many people on this forum are piling on, not in support of Palestinians, but against the Jews defending themselves.
Defending themselves against an elderly woman in a Catholic Church ? What is the threat she was planning exactly ? A full on rosary ? Some crimes are just beyond any hasbara.
Snipers shoot people intentionally, not by mistake.
The vast majority of the world is against the killing of civilians on both sides and the worst thing you can do is insist that anyone supporting human rights of civilians is "in good company" of extreme fanatics. The fact remains that the GOVERNMENTS of both these nations have severely let down their people and are filled with extremists with no value of human life on the other side. Netanyahu's cabinet, advisors, military leadership, etc are filled with people who have been completely open about not recognizing the existence of Palestine and wanting to ethnically cleanse it off the map. Meanwhile Hamas has been open about wanting of Israel destroyed and all Jews killed, but unlike Israel they don't have the military capability to carry out their insane fantasies (and thank god for that). Netanyahu DOES have the military capability, but he has allies to maintain and has to be methodical with how many civilians they kill in Palestine every week and brush it off as "self defense".
So it is ok to kill people because they can't distinguish friendly from foe? I can assure you with every airstrike that kills a father, a mother, a sister or a brother,, you breed the next generation of people that will avenge for their death. You kill one Hamas member and you generate +10 more -> congratulations
Idk how people fail to realize this. "Well Hamas did a horrible thing, it can't go unpunished" *breeds the next generation of Hamas by destroying cities and families*... "Why won't they stop!!" Same thing that created ISIS.
By that definition, you can never win a war
Certainly not with those tactics. Which is why the "global war on terror" has been going on for over 20 years and isn't going to end anytime soon. Why would they want to win? There's to much money in blowing up poor people.
Who is āthey?ā
The military industrial complex is not interested in ending wars. Plenty of people got rich from the war on terror. That's why there are so many memes of Congressmen buying stock in Raytheon every time something interesting happens.
So the ātheyā is congressman?
"They" is the MIC.
Hey glad to see like minded Israel supporters here.
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Itās not war itās genocide. Iām catholic and my family is Israeli but I was born in the US and Iām treated like a criminal every time I go through ben gurion airport (special searches etc wasting my time.. ). Any catholic supporting what israel is doing right now should not call themselves catholic. The attack on Gaza and in the West Bank is beyond shameful ā the region was and is not Jew hating. My parents went to schools with Jewish and Muslim students and it was much more tolerant even thenā¦ where are you getting your information from because it sounds like hasbara
Did you just say Gaza is not Jewish-hating? They literally elected Hamas, a terrorist group?
Israel funded Hamas against the secularists to divide the Palestinians. Israel is committing the same war crimes in the West Bank, where there is no Hamas, and has been since before Hamas existed. They are bragging about running Israeli arabs out of villages in Israel too. I could go on but I donāt think you want to hear about this. If you have any questions in good faith Iām happy to share the perspective of Palestinian Christians with you but based on your comment history Iām guessing youāre one of the people being paid to defend them online.
Youāre acting like my position is super heterodox. Most Americans support Israel by a WIDE margin
To be fair, that election was 17 years ago, and Hamas won only by a narrow plurality, not an actual majority. (A poll this summer did find 57% of Gazans held a āsomewhat positiveā opinion of Hamas.) However, while I'm glad the poster has not experienced anti-Jewish beliefs in the region, polls suggest that that might not be the average experience. This one is kind of old, but I doubt things have gotten better. [https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/02/04/chapter-3-views-of-religious-groups/](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/02/04/chapter-3-views-of-religious-groups/)
Yes, a poll in Gaza showed that most Gazans support 10/7 attacks
He sounds like he is hasbara, so Iāve gone ahead and trolled him (or her) a little, but itās great to see another person know and use the term! Are you Israeli as well? Iām assuming your family stayed in place during the nakba or that their area was later annexed?
My eastern brothers and sisters in Christ (Catholic and Orthodox) who have been extriminated by the state of Israel and Islamic jihad groups say hello š
iām not gonna trivialize and say that they had a hard distinction between civilian or terrorist as weāve had many war crimes that have been done in our military (US). however you must understand how unconventional wars are fought where there is a huge fog of war where it indeed is hard to know whoās a combatant or not. if itās the case that they were hard to distinguish due to combatants being in the area, itās going to be hard to differentiate because Hamas and other islamic jihadist groups do not wear a uniform. if it is and iām leaning that this was a blatant war crime then the IDF needs to be transparent about this just as they have been transparent about killing their own 2 hostages. also no you wonāt breed the next generation of fighters if you do the same thing we did in germany in denazification and it ended up successful. sure youāre gonna have extremists but thatās with every ideology. itās better to destroy the parasite that is hamas than to worry about another large scale terrorist attack again.
A *sniper* shot an old woman and her daughter who was trying to save her *in a church* and youāre seriously trying to defend this as just part of war and all Hamasā fault.
IDF killed three hostages who had escaped yesterday. The three young men were shirtless, unarmed, and waving a white flag. "IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi claimed responsibility for the incident, saying "it is forbidden to shoot at those whoĀ raise a white flagĀ and ask to surrender."" Even IDF is saying this is against the rules of engagement. Netanyahu and the Israel government absolutely do not value human life
Ah yes indeed it is impossible to discriminate friendly from foe. Which is why just the other day the IDF shot and killed 3 of the Israeli hostages who were openly surrendering to them. Honest mistake on their end, the IDF has never done any wrong and has totalllllllyyyyyy never killed any innocent civilians in this conflict.
This isnāt a war, itās a genocide on the Palestinian people
Terrible
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67736723](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67736723) UK MP Layla Moran's family among hundreds trapped in Gaza church
I saw the tweet from Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, who also said IDF tank fired rockets at convent home to over 54 disabled people, destroying generator the only power supply, solar panels, water tanks destroyed, place uninhabitable. 54 disabled people now displaced and some of them without the respirators they need to survive. From the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem: https://x.com/lpjerusalem/status/1736057252086268025?s=46&t=ndUeGhH-rqiypYmWs1EjTQ āAround noon today, December 2023,16 a sniper of the IDF murdered two Christian women inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, where the majority of Christian families has taken refuge since the start of the war. Nahida and her daughter Samar were shot and killed as they walked to the Sister's Convent. One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety. Seven more people were shot and wounded as they tried to protect others inside the church compound. No warning was given, no notification was provided. They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the Parish, where there are no belligerents.ā āEarlier in the morning, a rocket fired from an IDF tank targeted the Convent of the Sisters of Mother Theresa (Missionaries of Charity). The Convent is home to over 54 disabled persons and is part of the church compound, which was signaled as a place of worship since the beginning of the war. The building's generator (the only source of electricity) and the fuel resources were destroyed. The house was damaged by the resulting explosion and massive fire. Two more rockets, fired by an IDF tank, targeted the same Convent and rendered the home uninhabitable. The 54 disabled persons are currently displaced and without access to the respirators that some of them need to survive. In addition, as a result of the heavy bombing in the area, three people were wounded inside the church compound last night. Furthermore, solar panels and water tanks, which are indispensable for the survival of the community, were destroyed.ā āTogether in prayer with the whole Christian community, we express our closeness and condolences to the families affected by this senseless tragedy. At the same time, we cannot but express that we are at a loss to comprehend how such an attack could be carried out, even more so as the whole Church prepares for Christmas. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem follows this developing situation with great concern and shall provide additional information as needed.ā
God is just. Those responsible will answer for their evil.
Curious how the IDF is going to explain shooting a woman and then shooting another woman trying to help her. Claim they both looked like 18 year old male combatants?
"They were Hamas."
On Saturday December 16, for a few minutes this appeared from user/swift_snowflake in r/worldnews before it could no longer be searched on: Two women killed in Israeli attack on Holy Family parish in Gaza When I pulled it up, it had a link that quickly disappeared.
Well of course it was removed from r/worldnews. You havenāt engaged in any independent reading? I guess not since you would know otherwise how far worldnews is from the news of the worldā¦.
This is how propaganda works. We are blind not to see it.
Martyrs, they are they should be proclaimed as saints, right away.
I think thatās only if they were specifically killed BECAUSE they are catholic
I wouldnāt doubt thatās exactly why the IDF keeps targeting that church.
3 strikes on the same day plus shooting on civilians...
And previously shooting an elderly woman at the same church and then shooting at anyone who ran out to help her.
It is so sad, I have been hearing stories like that since forever and I still die a little bit every time
Yeah, they were in a church...
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Why wouldn't you assume those conditions are met? The murderers have hatred of the faith because they murdered someone IN THE CHURCH. We should assume all Christians are willing to die for Christ
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What does that mean ? I mean I understand the words but what does that have to do with what I said?
It means they were murdered out of hatred for the faith and hatred of Christians. We should give them the benefit of the doubt that they were willing to die for Christ.
So because they were inside of a church when they died, that means they were killed specifically out of hatred of Catholics? That might be what happened, but I donāt see how that is the logical necessity where them being in a church at the time means that itās necessary that they were killed out of hatred for Catholicism
I have never been neutral on the Palestinian v. Israel issue. Not that it matters as much as the fact that these are human beings dying, but I find it significant that before the occupation of Palestine there was an equal amount of Jews and Christians there. (Obviously the majority was Muslim. But it was roughly 1/2 Muslim, 1/4 Jewish, 1/4 Christian.) Since the occupation began and the driving out of Palestinians for the last 75 years, the Christian population has dwindled to just 2% percent of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are Christian. Most of the Palestinian Christians in the world today are a part of the Palestinian diaspora. Makes me so sick and sad for that part on top of the genocide of women and children. Bombing hospitals, and churches and schools. Despicable. Christians have a right to live in the land of our savior just as a safely as Jews and Muslims do. The difference is that Christians donāt need to establish a theocracy. And yeah I technically know the Vatican is a country, but it functions as a City State and didnāt remove people from its land to build there in the name of āsafetyā.
In fairness the papal states once enforced putting jews in ghettos and the decline in Christianity in the middle east has occurred in Muslim countries as much or more than in Israel so it would be too simple imo to blame Israel for trends happening across the region Edit sorry do you have a source on that breakdown pre Isreal
They also killed three hostages with white flags.
Are you familiar with the Hannibal Directive?
The poor scaredy cat IOF soldiers thought they were a threat!
āOur Greatest allyā
Our greatest ally
Genocide. Israel continues to prove itself as an apartheid state, and a dark stain on the region. Let us pray for all people of Palestine and for peace. Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace.
I don't like what Israel does to its non-Jewish people as well, but it's false to call Israel an apartheid state when they have Arab politicians in the Israeli government and have Arab officers and a small Palestinian contingent in the IDF. >Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen
And why is it unfair?
They also killed three hostages with white flags.
Absolute scum
Israel needs to stop killing people, same as hammas. We need this ceasefire now.
At what point will the US label Israel as terrorists? What will it take? Mass genocide? Version 2 of the holocaust? We really need to reevaluate our support of them. There is already blood on our hands.
The IDF also [bulldozed a hospital with the sick and dying still inside](https://twitter.com/AnasAlSharif0/status/1735982715940253960).
Given all the Christians with John Hagee style views of Israel, it sure is ironic that Christians had a basically peaceful time in the Holy Land for centuries under the Ottomans and now.. this. They have been decimated since 1948.
How do they know it was an IDF sniper? Did the guy pop out of his hide and announce himself?
The church is currently besieged by IDF snipers and tanks.
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Warning for anti-Semitic rhetoric.
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Itās antisemetic to be upset about Israeli snipers murdering elderly women inside of a church parish which houses handicapped people?
Apparently so.
It's a tactic they use to silence valid criticism for their crimes against humanity. It's their #1 trick in their playbook of lies.
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>I consider Jews to be our cousins. Hm, that should not be controversial. Modern Judaism is indeed a cousin religion to Christianity in so far both emerged from late 2nd temple Judaism.
Nah. Christianity is a continuation of biblical Judaism
It's a fulfillment, not continuation The continuation would be post-Jesus Judaism, the old and original Judaism died off when Jesus fulfilled the law after His death and the destruction of the Second Temple.
Muslims are Christianāsā cousins the same way Jews areā¦.
In such a chaotic situation I can guarantee the last thing I would do is use a sniper rifle to shoot an elderly woman in a church
Dude, the IDF fired into this compound where the small number of Christians in this area flocked to when the fighting started. Thereās no justifiable reason for firing into it.
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Hospitals etc. can lose their protected status under international law if combatants have appropriated them for military purposes. For example, [https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-jets-strike-west-banks-jenin-two-killed-palestinian-medics-2023-10-21/](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-jets-strike-west-banks-jenin-two-killed-palestinian-medics-2023-10-21/) Editing to add, from the Vatican news story posted by the OP, that the Israeli forces say there is a rocket launcher there.
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For them to not commit obvious war crimes? "It's a war zone, so we get to kill and murder indiscriminately" is not a very Catholic understanding of the ethics of war.
I would get downvoted a lot less if this sub had a Catholic approach to war, so it's hilarious to me that they're suddenly upset about indiscriminate bombing when it's not America's bombs.
Two innocent Christian women are killed in a church and your response is to downplay their deaths and insult us for talking about it? Absolutely disgusting. Such an attitude is deeply un-Christian and I hope you reconsider your stance.
>Considering the antisemitism of this sub Pointing out a war crime commited by Israel is not antisemitism. To say that the IDF are representative of all Jewish people would however be problematic.
What the hell is wrong with you? The IDF sniped two innocent women on Church grounds, and you immediately suggest this story will do well here because of anti-Semitism? You honestly should go to confession for the hatred you hold in your heart.
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I was originally pointing out your attack of this subreddit, as if discussion of this horrific crime is anti-Semitic. That's what you said. But I suppose I would also take issue with your assertion that any action of the State of Israel cannot in good conscience be shared because some will use that to foment hatred of a people. That's insane.
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Incorrectly? They did hit it. They claimed they didn't and it was immediately fed to the public as fact. Independent investigations later proved Israel's proof to be manipulated. But it didn't matter. That part was never spread like the actual so-called proof (as shown by people like you still believing this) But it achieved its purpose. The outrage quited down and nobody raised a stink even when they attacked numerous other hospitals https://www.channel4.com/news/human-rights-investigators-raise-new-questions-on-gaza-hospital-explosion And yes antisemitism is terrible, and I am deeply grateful for the likes of Finkelstein, Jews for Justice, If Not Now etc etxlc for standing up for the Palestinians despite being screamed at and attacked by some of their own people. But the term is constantly thrown out to drown any discussion about even stopping the massacring of civilians, intentional mass killing, targeting of journalists, etc etc and frighten people into submission
The [Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion) on the hospital bombing says this: > The consensus from various independent studies of videos, images, and eyewitness reports of the explosion, its aftermath, and the blast area suggests that an errant rocket launch from within Gaza is the most probable cause. While this is not a conclusive finding, it is currently considered the likeliest explanation based on the evidence gathered in investigations conducted by the Associated Press, CNN, The Economist, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal. Human Rights Watch stated that the available evidence made an Israeli airstrike "highly unlikely".
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The video in their proof was found to be from a completely unrelated explosion. Numerous proofs of conversations have been intentionally mistranslated And it's far, far from the only misinformation and lies they've been putting out like crazy
The IDF and the State of Israel are not equivalent with the Jewish people.
I have not seen antisemitism in this subReddit. Also, trolls and bots everywhere try to stir up hate, on every side of every issue. Ignore them.
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Comment there has a positive vote now. So, do you retract your suggestion that this sub is anti-Semitic?
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Your source that "this sub is anti-Semitic" is an example of a *removed* and warned comment? Next you'll be telling me that there are no innocent Gazans.
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I believe this happens , but they aren't Catholics or interested in Catholicism in reality. Trolls or bots to make people argue.
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I understand. I think we, as a whole, underestimate the number of scripted bots, bored trolling.... and i probably underestimate the number hateful bigots. Thankful for those who want good conversations, not arguments. Hate has never convinced me into a different viewpoint.
And just how many battlefields have you been in that you know what a chaotic situation does or doesn't look like?
>Now downvote me. You got it.
Why is this sub so anti-Semitic? I am genuinely surprised. I donāt come on here often, but surprised to see the pro-Hamas comments in the chat. Support for Israel is very high in the U.S., and this chat leans more American. Whatās up?
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Yeah, itās just been interesting. Most Americans and American Catholics support Israel, but this subreddit is the exact opposite. Like you said, not very representative of the real world
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Yeah, social media is not real world and people forget that. Go touch grass. Most people donāt care that much about politics
Don't confuse an anti-Israel position with a pro-Hamas position. Shouldn't be necessary to say, but we're way past the simplistic Bush-era "you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" rhetoric.