From Gaza to the West Bank: Palestinian, Syrian, and Christian civilians under attack by Jewish settlers and the Israeli army
Developments across Israel, the Palestinian territories and southern Syria have heightened concerns about civilian protection, religious freedom and prospects for peace. The report cites Palestinian home demolitions and settlement expansion, the killing of a disabled Syrian civilian, an attack on a Gaza hospital and the desecration of a Maronite church. Heavy winter rains flooded makeshift shelters for displaced families in Gaza; Civil Defence authorities reported receiving more than 1,500 requests for assistance.
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The article describes several developments affecting civilians across Gaza, the occupied West Bank, southern Syria and northern Israel: severe weather and a hospital strike in Gaza, settlement-related displacement in the West Bank, Israeli military activity in Syria, and vandalism at a Maronite church. It reports competing accounts of some incidents and calls for investigations and civilian protections.
Heavy winter rain flooded displacement camps in Gaza and damaged shelters already weakened by months of war. Gaza Civil Defence said it received more than 1,500 requests for assistance, while the Hamas government press office estimated that around 70,000 tents were affected and weather-related losses reached about $3 million. Father Gabriel Romanelli, parish priest of Holy Family Church, described conditions as catastrophic, with families losing bedding, food and other belongings; rainwater mixed with sewage and waste in some areas.
The article says more than 150,000 tents purchased by humanitarian organisations remained outside Gaza because Israeli authorities had not approved their entry, according to UN spokesman Farhan Haq. The UN called for border crossings to be opened and for shelter materials, fuel, medical supplies and heavy machinery to be allowed in; Israel’s COGAT said it had increased water and sanitation measures, including sewage-truck deliveries.
A separate Israeli airstrike hit the surgical wing of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis overnight on November 11–12. Gaza health authorities reported six people killed, including a doctor, and at least 20 injured; Israel’s military and Shin Bet said they had targeted a senior Hamas commander and other militants allegedly operating from the hospital complex. The article says Israel accused Hamas of using the site as a command centre and weapons depot but had not presented evidence substantiating those claims, and that the strike was under investigation. Gaza health authorities said more than 1,600 people had been killed in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire began in October 2025.
On November 3, settlers entered at least eight Palestinian homes in Al-Duyuk al-Tahta, near Jericho, while their owners were absent. WAFA described the incident as a forcible takeover; Israeli sources said the properties had been acquired through a confidential purchase organised by the settlement movement Nachala with support from the Binyamin Regional Council. The Israeli military said the settlers’ arrival had not been coordinated, but troops were later deployed to protect them.
The article also reports that Palestinian authorities put the West Bank settler population at about 750,000, living in 194 settlements and 400 outposts, including East Jerusalem. A Palestinian commission said 2,536.44 dunams—about 253 hectares—belonging to three villages northwest of Ramallah had been classified by Israeli authorities as state land, a designation that could enable settlement development and constrain Palestinian use of the land.
In Bir al-Maskub, near Jerusalem, demolitions on November 3 destroyed nearly half the community’s structures and displaced about 20 people, according to the article. The affected buildings included homes, kitchens and sanitation facilities; Israeli authorities renewed demolition orders for the remaining structures. The community lies within the area designated for the E1 settlement plan, which envisages 3,401 housing units east of Jerusalem. Bimkom, Ir Amim and Peace Now said the demolitions were an escalation and argued that they were intended to remove Palestinians from land earmarked for settlement construction; legal challenges to the E1 plans were reportedly pending in an Israeli court.
The article says Muath Salama al-Baeer, a deaf man with Down syndrome, was killed during an Israeli operation in the village of Jamla on October 22. A local resident said al-Baeer did not respond to an order to stop because he was deaf, and soldiers shot him; residents said he was unarmed. His death prompted demonstrations in several Syrian cities and towns.
Citing an Amnesty International investigation published in May, the article reports that at least 23 civilian structures in three villages had been damaged or destroyed and that nine Israeli military bases had been established in Quneitra and Daraa since December 2024. Amnesty said the demolitions it examined were not justified by absolute military necessity and called for investigations into possible war crimes. A UN commission of inquiry in September identified 49 people, including two minors, who had been arrested in Syria and were believed to have been transferred to Israel; it warned that some acts under investigation could constitute war crimes.
Syrian transitional president Ahmed al-Sharaa has called for Israeli forces to withdraw to their previous positions and said the Golan remains Syrian territory. The article also describes residents’ concerns about detained relatives, access to agricultural land and safe return to their homes.
On November 1, unidentified people broke into the Maronite Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Nahariya and damaged or destroyed statues and religious images. Archbishop Moussa El-Hage condemned the incident and the Maronite Archdiocese of Haifa called on authorities to investigate, identify those responsible and bring them to justice. The archdiocese said Christians would continue worshipping there and stressed that forgiveness did not mean abandoning the pursuit of justice.
Across the incidents, the article highlights concerns about civilian safety, displacement, access to land and freedom of worship. It says security threats, including those posed by armed groups, do not remove the obligation to protect civilians, and argues that allegations involving the hospital strike, demolitions in southern Syria and displacement in Palestinian communities require credible investigation and accountability.
The moral duty to protect civilians and religious freedom
Catholic teaching holds that protecting civilians and safeguarding religious freedom are moral duties rooted in every person’s dignity—not favors granted by governments or protections reserved for one religious community. States have a primary responsibility to protect people under their care; when grave abuses occur and a state cannot or will not protect them, the wider international community may have a responsibility to act. That duty does not make military intervention automatic: action must respect international law, and protecting the vulnerable requires attention to peaceful and diplomatic means as well as any measures to stop aggression.
The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church says that the right to use force in legitimate defense is joined to a duty to protect innocent victims who cannot defend themselves. It also insists that international humanitarian law must be respected in modern conflicts, where civilians are too often struck or deliberately targeted. Forced removal of people from their homes under the guise of “ethnic cleansing” is always unacceptable.
In such tragic circumstances, humanitarian aid must reach the civilian population and must never be used to influence those receiving it; the good of the human person must take precedence over the interests of the parties to the conflict.
This principle has practical force: civilians’ need for food, medical care, shelter, and safety cannot properly be subordinated to a party’s political or military advantage. The Church also draws particular attention to refugees, whose flight from combat does not diminish their rights or dignity; concern for them should include material support and effective protection of their human rights.
The moral requirement to protect civilians applies to everyone, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, or religion. The Compendium describes attempts to eliminate national, ethnic, religious, or linguistic groups as crimes against God and humanity, and says that the international community has a moral obligation to act when a group’s survival is threatened or its basic rights are gravely violated. It adds that, if other available means prove ineffective, concrete measures to disarm an aggressor can be legitimate and even obligatory—provided those measures fully respect international law.
Religious freedom is more than permission to attend worship. Archbishop Paul Gallagher describes it as including the ability to live according to one’s belief and for religious communities to organize themselves to serve their members. He emphasizes that governments have a duty to protect this freedom and that it helps people, especially the marginalized, to live with dignity and agency.
The Church’s concern is not limited to Christians. Governments should protect the rights of individuals and communities to choose, profess, and practise their beliefs, privately and publicly, while respecting public order and the rights of others. Benedict XVI likewise condemned religious discrimination and persecution as unacceptable and unjustifiable, and called political and religious leaders to safeguard freedom of conscience and religion for all.
Accordingly, protecting people persecuted because of their faith is not a claim that one religious group deserves greater protection than others. The moral basis is the humanity and fundamental rights of those threatened. A scholarly account in the supplied material makes this distinction explicitly: people facing violence because of religious affiliation should be protected on account of their humanity, rather than because a state seeks to defend a particular faith or confessional interest.
The Church’s teaching rules out indifference to grave abuses, but it does not treat force as the first or only response. Benedict XVI’s account of the responsibility to protect holds that states have the primary duty to shield their populations from grave and sustained human-rights violations and humanitarian crises. If a state cannot provide that protection, international action should use legal means provided by the UN Charter and other international instruments. He also stresses the need to explore diplomatic avenues and support dialogue and reconciliation.
That framework requires moral scrutiny of any proposed use of force: who is acting, under what authority, for what purpose, and at what human cost. The U.S. bishops accordingly call for moral limits on military force and for efforts to protect human rights and religious liberty. The aim must be the protection of people and the ending of aggression—not punishment of a population or the pursuit of religious or political dominance.
These principles establish a clear moral standard, but the supplied material does not provide enough verified facts about any particular incident to determine who is responsible, whether a specific attack violated humanitarian law, or which response would be lawful and proportionate. Those judgments require careful, reliable evidence. What can be said on the Catholic principles is that civilians must be protected, religious freedom must be secured for all communities, humanitarian aid must reach those in need, and any response must preserve human dignity and comply with international law.