By Fr Ibrahim Faltas*
In Jerusalem, fear is palpable and almost tangible. Empty streets, inaccessible places of worship, and closed shops of the Old City, and the wounded and destruction in so many cities of the Holy Land have once again become the images of the suffering of this martyred land. They are tangible scars and invisible wounds that reveal the pain and trauma of what has happened with the new and repeated outbreak of an endless war.
Breaking the silence of a deserted city is the sound of sirens, which causes anguish while waiting for missiles that will bring yet more death and destruction. Fear returned with force, or perhaps it had never really disappeared, on Saturday morning—it was a Saturday like that tragic Oct 7, 2023.
Together with teachers and school staff, we managed to maintain the calm needed to reassure the children while waiting for their parents, who had only just left their children at the school entrance.
It was not easy for the teachers to hold back their tears as they reassured the children, who had just recited together the simple prayer of Saint Francis before entering the classroom.
I looked at the children, the hidden trauma in their sad eyes; I felt the awareness and responsibility of the adults, their suffering because the return of violence would bring a renewed distancing from the welcoming serenity of the school: these thoughts and these worries crowd my mind and heart.
Near the Holy Places, we live an apparent normality because we believe, pray, and hope, but the deafening noise of war always brings us back to painful reality.
Children do not understand violence; they do not know the inhuman reasons for violence, and they continue to be the innocent victims of the absurdity of evil.
Children understand and recognize only goodness. In these moments they tremble, and it is evil that makes them tremble; it is the fear of something they do not know that extinguishes their smiles—the smiles of all the children who suffer and die in countries that are scenes of war. They die and suffer in Gaza, in Tehran, in Kyiv, in Tel Aviv.
They are frightened, they are sad, they suffer from hunger and from the cold, they are afraid under the shelter of wet tents, they are isolated in the darkness of shelters and bunkers, they are buried under the rubble of schools and homes, they do not play, and they do not use pens and colored pencils.
This is the inhuman result of war.
After Oct 7, 2023, there were many appeals and requests to the international community to become human again. Two Pontiffs appealed for peace with great intensity, as did civil and religious authorities, ordinary men and women, and prominent figures.
The answers have not come, and if they have come, they have so far produced no results and no solutions in Gaza, in the Holy Land, and in other areas afflicted by years of war and violence.
Who should have responded to the requests for peace? What humanity responds to wounded humanity?
These are questions that cannot find answers if, for years, the essential rights of the innocent continue to be trampled upon, and if the duties of the international community are managed according to the interests of a war economy and by indifference toward those who suffer.
In Gaza, children deprived of the right to serenity, instead of receiving assistance and education, are forced to search through the rubble for objects they can resell in exchange for food and blankets.
What humanity supports and helps them while they dig through the dust and the memories of other innocents? Who still remembers them?
What humanity does not allow help to reach those who were seeking safety and lost their lives in the sea, which now brings back to the surface bodies and dreams of hope?
What humanity does not respect the timing and the terms of agreements that could give respite and breathing space to those waiting for an end to unimaginable violence and suffering?
These are questions for which we have no answers, questions to which the humanity of those who, as Pope Leo says, have the moral responsibility to prevent evil from being the absolute protagonist of our times does not respond.
My lived experience in the Holy Land still leads me to believe in and hope in the hearts of human beings who love their neighbor without preconceptions and without limits, who offer a friendly hand, attentive listening, an embrace that warms the soul.
This is the humanity in which every human being should recognize himself; this is the humanity that the international community must represent.
Rights and duties, responsibility and respect are essential elements to remain human, to believe, to have trust and hope in humanity, and to eliminte the din of war and give voice to the sound of peace. – Vatican News
*Head of Schools of the Custody of the Holy Land
