Despite what several outlets and the Vatican have claimed, Israel insists that it did not shoot down two Christian women in cold blood at a Gaza church. Of course, by this point in the war, it should have been obvious that claim was sketchy, but Westerners continue to be shockingly gullible or disturbingly anti-Semitic.
After the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem asserted that an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sniper gunned down two women sheltering at Holy Family church “without warning” and “in cold blood,” Pope Francis mourned this alleged IDF attack on a church sheltering Christian families, nuns, and the sick or disabled. “Some are saying, ‘This is terrorism and war.’ Yes, it is war. It is terrorism,” Francis told pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square.
The problem? IDF denies the accusation. And, though I hate to say this as a Catholic, at this point in the war, I trust the IDF more than I trust the Vatican to have the straight story.
So far, all the stories about Israel supposedly attacking churches turned out to be fake or exaggerated. Israel specifically tries to avoid killing civilians and destroying civilian structures when possible, in stark contrast to Hamas’s use of human shields and civilian buildings for terrorist activities.
Related: Palestinian Authorities Cancel Christmas in Bethlehem to Honor Terrorists
The pope should have double-checked the story (of course, as my father reminded me, this is the pope who keeps renewing the deal with Communist China that led to worse persecution of Chinese Catholics). It is tragic that too many civilians have gotten caught up in the current conflict. But that’s precisely because Hamas did everything possible to prevent civilian evacuations and keep them in harm’s way. Not to mention, again, IDF denies that it killed the two Christian women who were sheltering at the church. Sources in Gaza have a tendency to be grossly unreliable in these cases of claimed casualties.
Breitbart reported on Dec. 18 that “Israeli government spokesperson Tal Heinrich said that an investigation had been conducted, and nothing was found to substantiate claims made in the media and repeated by the Pope.” Heinrich stated, “There was no fighting in the Rimal neighborhood [of Gaza] where this specific Catholic Church is located. The IDF has conducted no fighting around that area. The IDF talked to representatives of the Christian community — it was not something that was brought up in the conversation.”
She added, “We looked into it — even when the truth is the most inconvenient thing to acknowledge, we admit it, as was the case with the three hostages who were mistakenly shot.” In this case, there seems to be no inconvenient truth to admit. More details from The Times of Israel:
Stressing that the IDF “does not target civilians, no matter their religion,” the army told AFP that it had on Saturday been contacted by church representatives about an incident in the Holy Family Parish, but “no reports of a hit on the church, nor civilians being injured or killed, were raised.”
“A review of the IDF’s operational findings support this,” it added. “The IDF takes claims regarding harm to sensitive sites with the utmost seriousness — especially churches — considering that Christian communities are a minority group in the Middle East.”
The reality is that there is one side in this conflict with a record of brutally killing civilians, and it isn’t Israel. The right and the wrong should be blatantly clear, as Israel fights a fanatically evil terrorist group committed to genocide of Jews, following the single worst day (Oct. 7) of massacre for Jews since the Holocaust. But many Christians (including Pope Francis) are so desperate to see the Palestinians as victims instead of as jihad-loving anti-Semites that they trumpet every accusation against Israel without waiting to see if it’s true — even though Christians are exponentially freer under Jewish rule than under Muslim rule.
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