Dec 20,2019
In recent years, mosques
and churches have been targeted by vandals in similar attacks. They are
always attributed to extremist Jews in West Bank settlements.
 |
| The Galilee church where Jesus was believed to have performed miracle of feeding 5,000 followers was set alight in arson attack carried out by extremist Jewish settlers. |
Hebrew graffiti was also scrawled across the walls of Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish.
An
adviser to the Catholic Church blamed Jewish extremists for the
“deplorable” attack after Israeli police said there is a “strong
possibility” the fire was started deliberately.
The
current structure was built on the remains of a fifth-century Byzantine
church at Tabgha on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where many
Christians believe Jesus fed 5,000 followers with just five loaves and
two fish.
Police
confirmed there was extensive damage to both inside and outside the
building after the fire broke out in the middle of the night.
A monk and a church volunteer were hospitalised from smoke inhalation, but the incredibly, the prayer area was unaffected.
“It's
deplorable, absolutely deplorable,” Father Gregory Collins, head of the
Order of Saint Benedict in Israel, said. “I consider such an attack to
be not just an attack on a religious site, on a sanctuary, but also on
one of the most visited places in Israel.”
“It is also an attack on freedom of speech, democracy and the right to live here,” he added.
This
incident, which happened in June 2015, was not the first such attack to
be carried by the extremist Jewish settlers against Palestinian Muslim
and Christian holy sites.
In
recent years, mosques and churches have been targeted by vandals in
similar attacks. They are always attributed to extremist Jews in West
Bank settlements.
Such
attacks have been on the rise because the perpetrators, who are being
backed directly by the Israeli government, go unpunished.
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