Patriarch deplores plans threatening Palestinian rights

‘Palestinians have the right to feel like a people and to have a state and even affirming this possibility is an act of justice,’ said Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem expressed concerns about plans for the Holy Land that undermine the rights of the Palestinian people.

“We need political leadership, but also religious leadership, on both sides, that has some vision and does not base its authority solely on anger and the thirst for revenge,” said Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa OFM on 6 February, in response to a question about Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace”. It is scheduled to meet in Washington for the first time on 19 February.

“In the meantime,” the patriarch continued, “we must hold firm, convinced that we cannot leave the narrative to extremists, whether Hamas or settlers.”

Speaking at the Church of San Francesco a Ripa in Rome, where he was attending an event organised by the National Committee for the 800th Anniversary of the Death of St Francis, Pizzaballa also emphasised how complicated it is to envision and implement the two-state solution but insisted that “it is something that must be worked toward”.

“Palestinians have the right to feel like a people and to have a state and even affirming this possibility is an act of justice,” he said. “It helps them continue to cultivate the dream of one day having a home of their own.”

Reporting on his last visit to the Holy Family Parish in Gaza just before Christmas, he said: “I saw a desire to resume a normal life and saw faces full of dignity despite everything that had happened.”

The hundreds of people still sheltering in the parish “have suffered unspeakable pain [and] there was a lack of everything”, he said.  In particular, “beyond material things like food, water, and medicine, there was a need for care, for empathy, which they found in the closeness of the Pope and the entire Church”.

On 4 February, Gaza’s parish priest Fr Gabriel Romanelli IVE told Aid to the Church in Need that “the war is far from over for the 2.3 million inhabitants of Gaza”. Authorities in the Gaza Strip say more than 500 Palestinians have died since the ceasefire called on 10 October 2025.

“Houses have been destroyed, deaths and injuries continue to be recorded,” Romanelli said, and many people live in tents that provide little shelter during heavy winter rains. He said these living conditions and continued violence created a “very serious” situation and pleaded for the war to stop to allow a response to the humanitarian crisis.

Cardinal Pizzaballa also reported a worsening situation for Christians in the West Bank, including further settler attacks on the Christian village of Taybeh in early February.

“Our presence in the Holy Land has dramatically declined since I arrived in 1990,” he said, adding that, “since the beginning of the war alone, at least one hundred families have left Bethlehem”. He worried that “unfortunately, many no longer trust that things can change, at least in the near future”. 

“Against Palestinians in general, both Muslims and Christians, there are all kinds of abuses – people are prevented from working, they are deprived of their land, they are subjected to armed assaults and acts of vandalism, their homes are devastated, demolished or confiscated,” he said, emphasising that “our 13 schools in Jerusalem constantly face problems with permits for teachers coming, in particular, from Bethlehem”.

Pizzaballa appealed for pilgrims to return to the Holy Land. “Bethlehem and Jerusalem are safe,” he insisted. “We need to see that the Church and the Christian community are present, physically present as well.”

Last week, Church leaders briefed diplomats in Jerusalem on threats to Christian presence in the Holy Land. They raised the matter of repeated attacks by the Israel Defence Forces and illegal settlers on churches and hospitals and on Christians themselves.

These, coupled with threatened taxation and seizure of church properties, reflected the erosion of religious freedom in the Holy Land over the past decade, they said. Following the presentations, several diplomats pledged their continued support of the Churches and religious freedom in general.

On Sunday, Israel’s security cabinet approved measures to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank, including allowing settlers to buy land there directly and expanding the Israeli authorities powers in the area. There are around 3 million Palestinians and 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

Arab countries, United Nations officials and others condemned the measures, while a White House official said President Trump remained opposed to Israeli annexation of the West Bank. Israel’s President Benjamin Netanyahu is due to meet Trump on Wednesday.