Amid the escalating tensions in the Near East, where the conflict between Israel and the United States against Iran continues to convulse the region, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem has issued a solemn appeal for peace. Speaking on March 15 at a meeting jointly organized by the Oasis Foundation and the Milan Cultural Center on the theme "War Devours the Middle East and Its Peoples," Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa firmly denounced any instrumentalization of hostilities. For the high prelate, manipulating the name of God to justify such violence constitutes the gravest sin of our time.
In remarks reported by Vatican News, the representative of the Church in the Holy Land sought to recall the infinite closeness of God to the victims of the current tragedy. Refuting any bellicose rhetoric that would cloak itself in spiritual alibis, he affirmed that there is no new crusade and that the Creator is completely foreign to these logics of destruction. On the contrary, he emphasized, God is among those who are dying, those struck by illness, and those who are suffering.
The Cardinal then gave an unflinching assessment of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, a territory where 80% of the infrastructure is now destroyed, without the slightest effort at reconstruction having been able to begin. With border crossing points remaining almost entirely closed, the population faces a critical shortage of medical supplies, lacking even the most basic antibiotics. The precariousness has reached such a degree that many civilians are literally surviving in tents or amidst sewage, within a landscape where almost all educational establishments have been erased.
On the level of territorial administration, the geography of the Palestinian enclave is deeply fractured. More than two million displaced people are crammed into 53% of the Gaza Strip, an area now placed under the direct control of the Israeli army. The remaining 47%, where a majority of the Palestinian population resides, remains under the sway of Hamas. This situation is mired in a total political and military deadlock. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu rules out any concession as long as the Islamist faction is not disarmed, while Hamas refuses to lay down its arms before an Israeli military withdrawal. Faced with this impasse, diplomatic prospects struggle to gain ground. Questioned about the "Board of Peace" initiative promoted by President Donald Trump, the Patriarch expressed his skepticism, specifying that this project is not operational and that its true objectives still elude him.
Beyond the Gazan epicenter, the West Bank is also feeling the full brunt of the shockwaves from this war. Cardinal Pizzaballa expressed concern over the almost daily aggressions perpetrated by settlers against Palestinians, violence that does not spare the Christian minority. To this insecurity are added Israeli legislative initiatives aimed at changing the registration of land properties, a measure perceived as a direct harm to local inhabitants.
These political and territorial upheavals, coupled with ever more severe movement restrictions, have immediate repercussions on the pastoral life and educational works of the Church. The Patriarch notably cited the case of Jerusalem, where fifteen Catholic schools find themselves paralyzed due to the absence of more than two hundred of their Christian teachers, blocked in Bethlehem and unable to pass through the checkpoints to reach the Holy City.
Painting a picture of a daily reality particularly trying for his community and all the inhabitants of the region, the Patriarch concluded his intervention by recalling the heaviness of the current climate, testifying to a constant tension that makes the situation ever more complex for all those who remain on this torn land.