West Bank has become 'a lawless land,' says top Catholic in Jerusalem

The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, the top Catholic in the holy city, said Thursday that the West Bank has turned into "a lawless land" as the Israeli settlers’ aggression in the region continues, Vatican News quoted the cleric as saying.

The West Bank has now become “a lawless land," Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa told reporters at a Catholic festival in Rimini, northern Italy, adding that the situation continues "without any effective security or legal restraints.”

Speaking at the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples in Rimini, he urged further diplomatic engagement by the West to stop escalating violence in the Middle East.

“The fact that there is a situation of continuous aggression by settlers is well established," Pizzaballa stressed.

"The West must help raise its gaze somewhat, create perspectives, and also help calm this continuing downward spiral through ever greater diplomatic efforts."

He stressed the need for diplomacy as the "only way" to resolve the conflict "while avoiding the use of weapons, violence and military force.”

On the deteriorating situation in Gaza, Pizzaballa called it "very devastated from a human point of view.”

The two-state solution is "the only way to recognize the right of Israelis and Palestinians to have a home in their own land,” he said.

“Sooner or later the pope will come to the Holy Land — it is only a matter of time. I think it is necessary to prepare the conditions for this visit so that it can truly bear fruit," Pizzaballa added.

He also stressed the need to prevent the dehumanizing logic of war from becoming our “way of thinking, of surviving."

"War steals from young people the most beautiful years of their lives, when it does not take their lives altogether,” he said.

“This is true for Ukraine, but also for the Middle East. War has its own dynamics, and they brutalize you. The other person is exorcized, because if the other is human and close to you, it becomes difficult to strike them.”

He further said they should avoid "reducing peace to a slogan, as well as naive approaches to a complex reality."

Pizzaballa also said the sense of the common good had been lost in the Middle East as institutions seemed to be guided by what is good for themselves or for their own political side.

In a Middle East “so torn apart, burdened by hatred, resentment and hardship,” cultivating hope is not easy, he added.

“We must be realistic because the situation has deteriorated,” he added.