Gaza “a big concentration camp”, says Vatican cardinal
Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Vatican’s Council for Justice and Peace, has issued the Vatican’s toughest criticism of Israel, calling Gaza a “big concentration camp”.
“Defenceless populations are always the ones who pay. Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp,” Martino, whose informal title is Vatican “justice minister”, was quoted as saying in a Reuters report.
“For decades, human dignity has been trampled in the Gaza Strip; hatred and homicidal fundamentalism find fodder in social and economic injustice,” he said in another interview.
Meanwhile, the Latin (Catholic) Patriarch of Jerusalem Archbishop Fouad Twal, quoting from the 18th Conference of the Council of Oriental Catholic Patriarchs, criticised the siege of Gaza in his Christmas Day message:
Together with all the Catholic Patriarchs of the Middle East “we turn to our faithful and to all the citizens of the Holy Land, living in deteriorating conditions, especially the unjust siege that has struck Gaza, and the hundreds of thousands of innocent residents there.
And while we offer our thanks and appreciation, for the efforts invested by all those of good will, to break the siege, we appeal to the local and international authorities, to finally reach a just and final peace in the Holy Land, so that it might return, to being a source of redemption, reconciliation, justice and forgiveness for its people and the whole world.
We also call upon the Palestinians themselves, to return to unity in the context of a recognized Palestinian legal structure, and in this way, to spare the people the continuing and degrading siege.” (Final Statement: 18th Conference of the Council of Oriental Catholic Patriarchs)
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