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Palestinians strongly condemn sabotage of church in Jerusalem

30 October 2010 23:45 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA.Palestinian officials and religion leaders on Saturday strongly condemned the Israeli settlers for sabotaging a church in Jerusalem and called on the international community to intervene "to stop these practices", APA reports quoting Xinhua News Agency

Nabil Abu Rdeineh, spokesman for the Palestinian presidency said in a press statement that "the ongoing settlers attacks on religious Islamic and Christian sites "is a proof that those settlers are nasty and barbarians and practice the most awful kind of terror in front of the Israeli army."

He warned of what he described as "the operations of revel committed by the settlers in the West Bank," saying "such actions would certainly undermine all the exerted efforts to save the peace process from the impasse it is passing through due to the Israeli government’s rejection to freeze settlement."

Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad described the settlers’ practices "as acts of terrorism." He called on the Israeli people "to confront this injustice, and stand against it, mainly against occupation, settlement, violence and terrorism and what the settlers are committing."

He reiterated that the "Palestinian people are insisting to keep living on their land and practice their legal rights on it despite the occupation, the settlement and the separation wall."

"All these actions and practices will one day end and our people will keep believing in their just cause," he said.

Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs Reyad al-Malki, also condemned the attack on the church. He called on the international community "to stop the programmed war that is carried out by the settlers, who are fully protected by the Israeli army forces."

He warned of the dangers of the escalated Israeli actions and the settlers attacks on the Palestinian towns and cities " including destroying the Palestinian farmers crops and the ongoing attacks on the mosques and churches and expelling the Palestinians out of their lands."

Hassan Khater, chief of the Palestinian Islamic-Christian Corporation, considered the attack on the church "a serious crime, " saying that the attack on the church "is a serious indication of a programmed policy that targets the Palestinian holy sites."

"All the Palestinian Islamic and Christian holy sites in Palestine are all threatened and these places had become insecure due to the ongoing attack under the occupation," said Khater, who called for an immediate world intervention to stop these assaults.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Joma’a salama, Imam of al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, said "the recent Israeli attacks didn’t differentiate between a Moslem and a Christian and not between a mosque or a church," adding "such actions contradict with all religions and laws of the freedom of worshipping."

The National Christian Forum in the Holy Lands said in a statement that the attack on the church in Jerusalem is "part of the ongoing attacks on the Palestinian holy sites which had escalated since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office of a fanatic government."

Zakareya al-Mashriqi, one of the bishops in the city accused the Israeli settlers for burning and vandalizing one of the churches in the city of Jerusalem. A group of settlers "broke the back window of the two-store church and threw fire bombs inside," he said.

The Catholic Forum of Bishops for the Middle East called on Israel during a conference held on Oct. 23 in the Vatican to end its occupation of the Palestinian and Arab territories, adding that Israel "doesn’t have the right to depend on the holy book to justify the settlement policy."

The Palestinians have accused the Israeli soldiers over the past three month of burning two mosques and a school in the West Bank and writing raciest slogans on its walls.

Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday expressed a Palestinian despair concerning "the silence of the international community towards the settlers’ practices in Jerusalem and the West Bank, without pressuring enough on Israel to stop such actions."

Since 1967, about 120,000 settlers live with around 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank. Most of the time, tension in the enclave turns into violence.