attacks on Christian schools are surprising. Chaos in Israel worries

They shot at the school and the convent of the Franciscan nuns; some masked men attacked the institute of the Salesian nuns asking them to convert. Yesterday they interrupted the mass asking for the Qur’an to be recited. For the former vicar, the clear condemnation of the imam and the Islamic leader of the city is “positive”. The climate of strong tension around the justice reform, “generalized and worrying”.

Nazareth () – A climate of tension “that has surprised everyone, even the Muslims themselves” and represents a “novelty”. This is how the last episodes of violence and anti-Christian intolerance that took place in Nazareth was commented on by the former Patriarchal Vicar of Jerusalem for Latinos, Msgr. Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, who still lives in the holy city and is dedicated to pastoral care. “First,” he told – There were shots at the Franciscan nuns’ school, then they assaulted the Salesian nuns, whom they greeted with ‘Ramadan Kareem’ and exhorted them to become Muslims. The last one, yesterday morning, when a young man showed up at a church during mass and asked the vice-parish priest, a Maronite priest, to recite the Koran.” When the priest refused, “he began to pray” until he arrived. a group of people and “convinced him to give up and leave” so as not to create more tension.

Three incidents against Christians in a few days in the city of Jesus, which is also the most important center “of the Muslim and Arab world in Israel”, as Monsignor Marcuzzo explained. Of these, two affected educational institutes, for which reason the general secretariat of Christian schools in Israel called for today a general strike in all the institutes of Nazareth. “Special educational activities” are scheduled for tomorrow to deepen the issue of confessional violence and ways to counteract fundamentalism in society. On March 29, the College of the Salesian Sisters will hold a press conference entitled “No to violence”, while that same day the bishops “will publish an official note on the recent acts of violence”, anticipated the prelate.

The first attack occurred on March 16, when around 6:30 p.m. some individuals shot with pistols in the direction of the school and the convent of Franciscan nuns. A gesture considered a “dangerous precedent”, because for the first time the target was a Christian educational institution in Israel, which until now had been respected. The second took place on March 24 and was aimed at the institute and the house of the Salesian nuns, who were attacked by masked people in a small assault with a clearly confessional matrix. The nuns say that when they opened the gate they found people with their faces covered with black masks ordering them to convert to Islam in this “holy month of Ramadan”. The attackers would have been at least five young people, who fled when the guard arrived.

These attacks occur in a climate of deep tension, following the wave of protests in Israel related to the controversial justice reform. Added to this is the confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, fueled by provocative gestures such as Itamar Ben-Gvir’s march to the Esplanade of Mosques, which threatens to turn into a new intifada and has already caused a record number of victims. Then there are the attacks that Jewish extremists committed against places of worship and Christian centers: the latest episode, on March 19 at the Sepulcher of Mary, which was preceded by the assault on the Church of the Flagellation at the beginning of February, while At the beginning of the year extremist groups desecrated a cemetery on Mount Zion and before that they attacked other targets, including a church near the Cenacle, the Basilica of Nazareth itself and Catholic and Greek Orthodox buildings.

“Referring to the episodes of intolerance that have occurred in Nazareth in recent days – Monsignor Marcuzzo stressed – it is important to highlight the position taken by the two most authoritative imams in the city, heads of the mosques, who strongly condemned these gestures. It deals mostly with young people, perhaps carried away by excessive enthusiasm, who on the occasion of Ramadan [el mes islámico de ayuno y oración] they want to make gestures of… ‘apostolic zeal’, people who want to be noticed in a particular climate linked to the holy month”, he continued. “Today the schools are on strike and tomorrow there will be seminars and moments of reflection in the institutes”, explained the former vicar, “but as Church and Christian leaders we want to try to calm the situation, without making controversy.” crux The issue -he concluded- is that these episodes are part of a broader and more worrying panorama that is breathed in Israel, an escalation of tension that has surprised by the speed with which it is taking place and that, at least for now, is not has caused victims. However, the concern remains.”