As war frightens away tourists, Catholic activists pray for peace during Holy Land pilgrimage

JERUSALEM (OSV News) -- The Holy Land's sacred sites overflow with tourists in normal times, but with war in Gaza, most airlines have canceled flights to the region. The streets of the Old City of Jerusalem are deserted with merchant's stalls shuttered.

Yet for two Catholic peace activists from the United States, it was the perfect time to visit.

Invited by Palestinian Christian groups, they joined with 10 other U.S. Christians and flew to neighboring Jordan. From there they journeyed overland to Palestine and Israel.

"Church leaders here asked people from the United States to come and stand in solidarity with their brothers and sisters. That concept of solidarity is central to my faith, to the way that I think about the cross," said Kelly Johnson, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton, Ohio.

"The God who is revealed in Jesus is a God who says to people caught in the world's violence and disorder, 'I will be with you.' So it seemed important to come and be physically present with people caught in the horror of this moment. But I'm not coming as an uninvolved outsider. I'm coming as somebody from a nation that is funding this war," she said as the death toll in Gaza surpassed 40,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Israel has long been the leading recipient of U.S. foreign aid, including military support, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank. "That aid has come under heightened scrutiny amid Israel’s monthslong war to eliminate Hamas," it said.

Since its founding in 1948, Israel has received about $310 billion (adjusted for inflation) in total economic and military assistance from the U.S., the council said.

Scott Wright, a 74-year-old Pax Christi member from Washington who worked for years with refugees in Central America, said he wanted to come precisely because it was a difficult time -- also for Israeli families.

Relatives of hostages taken to Gaza gathered to shout out their hope and their pain in Nirim Aug. 29 at the fence of the security zone only 1.2 miles from the Gaza Strip. Rachel Goldberg-Polin, outspoken advocate for hostage families and mother of Hersh, one of the hostages, delivered a heart-wrenching message.

"Hersh! It's Mom. ... I pray to God he brings you back. Right now. I love you, stay strong, survive," she shouted in a microphone in hopes her 23-year-old Israeli-American son might hear her.

Hostage families were also in the prayers of the Catholic group in their Israel and Palestine mission. "We've tried to listen here to the living stones, including the families of the Israeli hostages. They're crying out. They want their loved ones to come home," said Wright.

"Yet we're also witnesses to incredible resilience and the heroic day-to-day struggle of ordinary Palestinians to simply live their lives. The Bible says if we are silent, then the stones will cry out. ... We've met with many Palestinians, and they're crying out. ... We want to honor that with our own cry for an immediate cease-fire," he said.

Johnson said that their trip "was driven by the urgency of the moment in Gaza. Yet while the eyes of the world are on Gaza, as they should be, people aren't noticing the degree to which the same thing is happening slowly throughout the West Bank," Johnson said.

Israeli forces carried out raids in the occupied West Bank Aug. 28 and 29, killing 12, including a "head of a terrorist network," according to Israel Defense Forces, and leading to calls for de-escalation from the United Nations.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on Israel to immediately halt its operation, saying it was "fuelling an already explosive situation."

Israel has agreed to a series of pauses in fighting in Gaza in September to allow young children in the strip to be vaccinated for polio, according to U.N. and Israeli officials. The pause would start Sept. 1 and will be split into three 3-day phases, according to World Health Organization officials.

The U.S. Catholic delegation's schedule included interviews with church leaders, clerics, nonviolent activists, Palestinian farmers and urban residents whose lands have been appropriated by army-backed settlers, and families whose homes have been demolished in East Jerusalem. In Rahat, Israel, the group helped local residents pack food boxes for distribution inside Gaza.

But such interreligious cooperation is not common in Israel these days. According to the region's top Catholic official, rising tensions have left interreligious dialogue in the Holy Land in shambles.

"Right now, Christians, Jews and Muslims cannot meet with one another, at least not publicly. Even at the institutional level it is a struggle to talk to one another," Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, said at a conference in Italy Aug. 20.

However, Wright said he remained hopeful that interfaith cooperation can prevail. He recalled how the delegation marched alongside a group of former Israeli soldiers who nonviolently protect Palestinian families facing settler violence at Al Makhrour Valley, northwest of West Bank's Bethlehem. "We have seen that there are Israeli Jews and there are Palestinians -- both Christians and Muslims -- who want to seek another way together, that it's possible to live in this Holy Land together as people of diverse faiths. And we want to support that," he said.

On Aug. 19, the delegation traveled to the border between Israel and Gaza to pray for peace alongside several Israeli rabbis. In an interfaith service at the ancient Maon Synagogue near Nirim, songs and prayers were frequently underscored by the sharp thud of Israeli airstrikes on nearby Khan Younis.

As Johnson offered a prayer, her words were interrupted by an air raid siren. Jewish participants ordered participants to drop to the ground and cover their heads with their arms. Once on the ground, Johnson said, she simply kept praying.

"Prayer is about aligning ourselves with God's will and God's longing for justice in the world. When you're offering such prayer, your body has to also be part of that longing. It was a privilege to be close to the danger and be able to speak the words of the prayer with my body. As a theologian that pleases me," Johnson said.

According to Rabbi Avi Dabush, who coordinated the interfaith service at the border, the Christian peace activists' visit provided encouragement to Israelis struggling to make peace at a time when many Israelis remain angry and vengeful. As a survivor of the bloody Hamas attack on nearby Nirim, Dabush said he understood how Israelis are angry, but suggested the future of Judaism was at stake in how they respond.

"Our most important struggle right now is over our values. We need your support, we need you to partner with us as we struggle for these values of justice, equality, peace and human rights. Your presence is a wake-up call to us when many simply want to go to sleep over this terrible situation. It's important for us that you are here," Rabbi Dabush told the Christian delegation.

"Otherwise the curse of history will remain. Each one wants to fix the history of their people. As I suffered, I think I can fix that by killing more people and their leaders and their children and so on, again and again," he said. "But you can't really fix history. You can only look to the future, and build another future. And we really hope that from the river to the sea, these two nations, these two peoples will find a way. Because we have to find a way for our children."