Christians departing the Holy Land. (News in Brief: Palestine).

Jerusalem--At the end of the 19th century, Christians made up 25% of the population of the Holy Land. Today they are barely 2.5%. To encourage Christians to remain in the Holy Land, the Franciscan Custody has launched a program to build 70 homes for Christian families near Jerusalem, in addition to the almost 500 dwellings it has constructed in other parts of the Holy Land. This new project called St. Francis Village, estimated to cost $10 million, took fifteen years to obtain a building permit. Now it is being further delayed due to lack of funds and the refusal of the Israeli government to give work permits to Arab workers.

Franciscan Friar Merino reports that international humanitarian aid goes mainly to the Muslims--"Christians only get the crumbs." Also, Muslims around the world support Muslims in the Holy Land, the U.S. helps the Israelis, but "no one helps the Christians." Most of the help to Christians comes from the Catholic Church through the Franciscans who have been the guardians of the Holy Places for centuries (Zenit, Dec. 3/02).

Since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising two years ago, about 1,000 Christians, mainly young people, have left Bethlehem in search of a better life elsewhere. Many Christian girls marry Muslims, knowing that their children will never be Christian. And in recent months, the small Christian communities are being isolated by the Israeli army.

For information available through the Internet, use the search terms "Franciscan Custody".

Jerusalem--For all practical purposes, Christmas was cancelled in the Palestinian Territories in 2002. In a cold and rainy Bethlehem, Israeli forces executed a temporary two-day pullback to enable Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but few foreign pilgrims attended and local Christians made their way through dark and unadorned streets.

In the Church of St. Catherine in Manger Square, an empty chair denoted the absence of Yasser Arafat, still banned by the Israeli government from attending the traditional midnight Mass. In his homily, Latin Patriach Michel Sabbah made an appeal on behalf of "the poor of this conflict," urging all Christians and the world community to "wake up" and help Israelis and Palestinians accept peace.

Humanitarian problems now loom large here and unemployment is sky high. The 100,000 Palestinians who used to work within the state of Israel are no more. They have been replaced by foreigners from Eastern Europe or Asia. The Palestinians are kept alive through U.N. food relief. Their per capita gross national product has dropped from $2000 to $700 per year, on a par with Haiti. In Bethlehem 60% of families live on $2 per day. Unemployment rises to 80% in the West Bank and Bethlehem. 1.8 million people rely exclusively on relief agencies, which include Caritas, the Pontifical Mission for Palestine, and the U.S. based Catholic Relief Services.

The Israeli army continues to destroy homes, either in retaliation for the suicide attacks upon Israelis or as part of the ongoing expansion of Jewish settlements and the building of the new wall. Thousands of Palestinian men have been arrested. Casualties number over 2000 Palestinian and 670 Israeli dead since September 2001, with 41,000 wounded Palestinians, of whom 2500 are permanently disabled, and of whom 19% are under 17 years of age. Israel continues to destroy workshops and whatever other industrial plants exist.

Hebron, West Bank--Last May, the Israeli human rights group B' Tselem sought a Supreme Court order barring Israeli soldiers from seeking protection behind human shields as they shoot at Palestinians. The military admitted that the policy was illegal and vowed to stop it. However, the use of human shields continues, despite the military ban. So does the practice of "requesting" Palestinians to enter dangerous sites to look for explosives. This practice, called the 'neighbour procedure', is used because it is not considered illegal. Recently a 19 year-old Palestinian was pressed to enter the house of a Hamas activist and was shot dead by the activist who believed him to be a soldier.

It is not uncommon for the Israeli soldiers to beat Palestinians into submission, and to subject them to ridicule and contempt. There has been a dramatic rise in assaults on Hebron Palestinians by the border police in retaliation for the assassination of 12 Israeli soldiers and border police on November 15, 2002.

On December 30, the body of a badly beaten high school student was found on a deserted road 20 minutes after being detained by border police when he returned from prayers at a nearby mosque (Toronto Star Jan. 1/03).

Gaza or the West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority has long since been destroyed; the government exists in name only; universities have been closed; high schools are often closed because of curfews or because they are too difficult for children to reach. The Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano, commenting on the division of Gaza into three sectors, enforced by the Israeli army, said the new measures "deny a person's fundamental rights" (Various sources, Dec/02).