Palestinian Church Affairs Committee Issues Urgent Appeal To World Churches To Protect Humanitarian Work In Gaza

RAMALLAH, Jan 5 (Bernama-WAFA) -- The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine (HCC) issued an urgent appeal to churches around the world to protect humanitarian work in the Gaza Strip, Palestine News and Info Agency (WAFA) reported.

Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Committee member and Head of the HCC Dr Ramzi Khouri, said in a message addressed to world churches that they are being approached at a moment of an extremely dangerous development that strikes at the core of human values and the Church’s mission.

He explained that this development is manifested in the systematic targeting of international non-governmental organisations (NGO) operating in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, through decisions to suspend, ban and terminate registrations.

He said these measures have affected 37 humanitarian institutions, including organisations with a clear Christian mission that have long constituted a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of besieged civilians.

He added that what is unfolding in Gaza today is no longer merely a restriction on humanitarian work, but rather a systematic attempt to criminalise relief itself and paralyse institutions that sustain the bare minimum of life in the face of siege, war, and comprehensive collapse.

Khouri stressed that silence at this moment cannot be understood as neutrality, but is instead interpreted as moral abandonment.

He noted that preventing humanitarian work and criminalising relief - at a time of a documented need for hundreds of aid trucks daily - constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law and a stark contradiction of Christian teachings that place human dignity at the core of the message.

He appealed to world churches to declare a clear position rejecting the targeting and banning of international NGOs, to exert moral and international pressure to open crossings and ensure the entry of aid in the humanitarian quantities required, and to stand by Gaza not with words alone, but with positions that translate faith into action.

-- BERNAMA-WAFA