wfn.org | Church, orphanage invaded by Israeli army

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #6816 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

28-August-2001
01299

Church, orphanage invaded by Israeli army

Bishop denounces occupation and shelling

by Douglas Dicks
PC(USA) mission co-worker

BETHLEHEM - This morning (Aug. 28) around midnight Israeli military tanks
heavily shelled the Bethlehem area, Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour.
The Israeli army supported by helicopters, tanks and bulldozers entered the
town of Beit Jala at around 1:00 a.m. and took control of several homes and
buildings.

	At 1:30 a.m. the army entered our church premises - the Evangelical
Lutheran Church of the Reformation, an orphanage (Evangelical Lutheran
Home), which is home to 50 children, and the Abrahams Herberge
interreligious center and guesthouse. Soldiers took positions on the roof of
one of the church buildings, with tanks stationed immediately outside the
entrance to the church premises.

	The orphanage's children, youngsters between four and 18 years of age, are
kept isolated in the Home together with some educators living on the
premises. As curfew has been imposed on the town, neither the pastor nor the
staff of the Home can reach the premises.

	We are trying to find ways to bring food and other necessities to the
isolated children.

	"We want to make clear that no shooting has taken place, neither yesterday
nor in the past, from our church buildings in Beit Jala," said Bishop Munib
A. Younan, the Lutheran Bishop in Jerusalem. "We are now receiving reports
that the Israeli army is shooting from the position on top of our buildings,
injuring and killing people in the town, which of course endangers the lives
of our children.

	"We denounce in the strongest possible terms the Israeli occupation of our
buildings and demand that the army immediately withdraw from our church
premises as well as from Beit Jala."
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