Bishop William Shomali, Patriarchal Vicar for Jerusalem and Palestine, has said that the Christians of the West Bank are fearful for their future, with unemployment rife, severe restrictions on their movement and an ongoing anxiety over the conflict in Gaza.
Speaking on our Catholic News podcast, he gave an overview of the situation in both Gaza and the West Bank. Referring to the latter, he explained how the hundreds of checkpoints cause acute disruption:
“In the West Bank there’s fear, hopelessness, unemployment, delay in getting from one place to another because of the checkpoints. A person who hasn’t been to a checkpoint in the West Bank doesn’t know the situation of the West Bank. There are big delays.
“Many cars are lined up. They want to cross from one place to another, and the delay is like our ‘daily bread’. We don’t know whether a checkpoint is open or closed. We can reach a place and it closes in front of us.
“It happened to me, reaching a checkpoint, it closed while I was about to cross. I had to turn back and to seek another crossing point. So this renders life very difficult to live, with unemployment, lack of tourism – this creates an atmosphere of hopelessness.”
Bishop Shomali, who was in the UK at the invitation of two charities helping the region’s Christians, Aid to the Church in Need and Friends of the Holy Land, also spoke of the war in Gaza. He said:
“There has been a war in the Holy Land since October 2023. This war was almost continuous in Gaza, except for the ceasefire that took place for 40-50 days. But apart from this, there was bombarding and shelling almost every day.
“In Gaza, people were not sleeping well because of the situation. They were not eating well because of the lack of food. Sometimes there was a real scarcity of food, and they would have maybe one meal or nothing during the day.”
Thankfully, the Latin Patriarchate is supporting its people, although it comes with many operational challenges:
“Really, the situation in Gaza is very dramatic. They don’t have cash in Gaza. They don’t have money. They rely, for all their needs in their daily lives, on the help which comes – either for food, water, medicine, diesel – they need help for everything.
“And the Latin Patriarchate was able to support them during the past 18 months. We feel that we are like the father of the house who has to take care of the children. But the children are not one, two, or three people; there are around 400 in the Latin compound.
“Also, we used to help our brothers and sisters in the Greek Orthodox compound. Altogether, 640. To that number we have to add the boys who are cared for by the nuns of Mother Teresa. They are more than 50. So we have to ensure we can help them.”
You can listen to the full 10-minute podcast here. Bishop Shomali also talks about the Holy Family parish in Gaza, Pope Francis’ daily calls to the parish priest there – even from his hospital bed – and the ways in which the Catholic community in England and Wales can be of help.
