In deadly CAR conflict, Catholic seminary shelters 2,000 Muslims

Jerusalem, Mar 11, 2020 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- Mohammed Hamayal, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy, was shot and killed by Israeli troops Wednesday during a clash in the West Bank.

He was killed during a March 11 Palestinian protest of Israeli settlers near Beita, some 40 miles north of Jerusalem.

According to Israel, 500 Palestinians were rioting, setting tires on fire and throwing rocks at its security forces.

In response to the rock throwing, Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition, rubber bullets, and tear gas, a witness told the BBC.

According to Palestinian officials, another 17 people were injured in the clash.

The Israeli army said that “we are aware of a report regarding a killed Palestinian and several injured. The incident will be reviewed.”

Israeli settlers have been trying to gain control of a hill in the Beita area, according to Palestinians.

Beita residents have held daily sit-ins on the hill since Feb. 28, “when settlers made the first attempt to seize the mountain and turn it into an Israeli religious tourist route,” Wafa, a Palestinian news agency, reported.

Some 600,000 Israeli Jews live in about 140 settlements in the West Bank, according to the BBC. Under international law, the settlements are generally considered illegal, though Israel disputes this.

Israel has in recent years been building a security wall through Palestinian land in the West Bank believed to be linked to the protection of the settlers.

In January US president Donald Trump and Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a two-state peace plan for Israel and Palestine, which was rejected by the state of Palestine.

The US bishops have encouraged Israel and Palestine to “negotiate directly” with each other and to agree on a common resolution for peace.

“Intrinsic to a fruitful discussion is the necessity that each state recognizes and supports the legitimacy of each other,” Bishop David Malloy of Rockford, chairman of the USCCB Committee on International Justice and Peace, said in a Feb. 3 letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Trump and Netanyahu unveiled their plan Jan. 28, which includes an independent Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem.

Despite this, Trump insisted that Jerusalem would also remain “Israel’s undivided— very important— undivided capital.” The United States moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in 2017.

A group of bishops from the United States and Europe visiting the Holy Land in January called on their countries’ governments to acknowledge the state of Palestine and to apply international law in Israel and the surrounding area in order to promote peace and justice.

“Our governments must do more to meet their responsibilities for upholding international law and protecting human dignity. In some cases they have become actively complicit in the evils of conflict and occupation,” the bishops said Jan. 16.

The bishops said it was “painfully clear” that living conditions for the people of the Holy Land are worsening, particularly “in the West Bank where our sisters and brothers are denied even basic rights including freedom of movement.”

The visiting bishops said that local bishops warn “that people are facing further ‘evaporation of hope for a durable solution’.” They added: “We have witnessed this reality first-hand, particularly how construction of settlements and the separation wall is destroying any prospect of two states existing in peace.”

The bishops encouraged their own countries’ governments to find political solutions to the conflicts in the Holy Land, including: “insisting upon the application of international law; following the Holy See’s lead in recognizing the State of Palestine, addressing the security concerns of Israel and the right of all to live in safety, rejecting political or economic support for settlements, and resolutely opposing acts of violence or abuses of human rights by any side.”

The Vatican recognized the state of Palestine in May 2015.

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Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem. / Credit: Eduardo Berdejo/ACI Prensa

ACI Prensa Staff, Jan 8, 2024 / 16:50 pm (CNA).
The grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, concluded on Jan. 3 a five-day… […]

CNA Staff, Nov 11, 2020 / 05:32 pm (CNA).- A conflict between the Ethiopian government and the government of Ethiopia’s Tigray region must halt immediately, or it will destroy more lives and turn the country into a “failure,” Ethiopia’s Catholic bishops have said.

“We, the Catholic Bishops of Ethiopia urge both parties to immediately stop the armed conflict and start peaceful dialogue for the benefit of the people and resolve their differences in the spirit of understanding, mutual respect and trust,” Cardinal Berhaneyesus Souraphiel of Addis Ababa said in a Nov. 9 statement from the Catholic Bishops Conference of Ethiopia.

The bishops said they were saddened by the armed conflict and the resulting deaths, displacement of people, and destruction of property, Catholic News Service reported.

“Conflict between brotherly people does not help anyone. Instead, it destroys lives of innocent people and it is an act that will turn our country into a failure and (create) extreme poverty,” the Ethiopian bishops said. They regretted the failure of truce negotiation efforts by religious leaders, elders and others.

In the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray, the regional government is run by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The group once dominated the ruling coalition of Ethiopia but felt marginalized by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s political changes after he took office in 2018. He dissolved the ruling coalition and merged its ethnicity-based regional parties into a single party, the Prosperity Party, which the TPLF refused to join.

Tigrayan leaders have said they were unfairly targeted by political purges and allegations of corruption. They have argued that Abiy’s postponement of national elections due to coronavirus have ended his mandate as a legitimate leader, BBC News reports.

On Nov. 4 Abiy announced a military offensive in response to an alleged attack on a military base in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray. The prime minister aims to arrest the regional government heads and to destroy its military arsenal.

Several hundred people have been killed on both sides of the conflict. Each side blames the other for the conflict, and it is difficult to confirm their claims, the Associated Press has said. Tigray’s communications have been almost completely cut off.

Over 200,000 Ethiopian refugees are expected to cross into Sudan, and thousands have already entered Sudan’s border provinces. The United Nations and Sudanese partners are preparing to aid 20,000 refugees.

Prime Minister Abiy, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for resolving a border conflict with Eritrea, rejected pleas for dialogue. The U.K. and the African Union, among others, have advocated for de-escalation.

Abiy has said there would be no negotiations until the end of the “law enforcement operation.”

In September the TPLF held elections despite a nationwide ban on them. The Ethiopian government declared the elections illegal. An emergency session of the national parliament last week voted to dissolve the Tigrayan government, charging that it had “violated the constitution and endangered the constitutional system.”

Tigray has had poor relations with Eritrea, which is on the region’s northern border. Tigrayan leader Debretsion Gebremichael has accused Eritrea of taking military action in support of the Ethiopian government, but he gave no proof, and Eritrea’s government rejected the claim, Reuters reports.

Tigray shares a western border with Sudan, which has put more than 6,000 troops on the border.

The conflict has prompted fears of regional destabilization as well as instability, and even civil war, within Ethiopia. Ethiopia has some 110 million people, the second-most populous country in Africa. It has many ethnic groups and other regions that desire more autonomy.

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