Maronite Bishop Antoine-Charbel Tarabay has called on all faithful to pray for peace, as Israel began a “targeted ground operation” in southern Lebanon on 1 October, following airstrikes that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other senior commanders in a Beirut bunker on 27 September.
“The Lebanese people find themselves plunged into an unprecedented war that they did not choose, and their daily life is already full of concerns and challenges and we cannot but feel their pain,” Bishop Tarabay wrote in a statement on 27 September.
“In the absence of any solution for their social and living problems, today, a very painful cross has been imposed upon their shoulders, a new war which has fetched a lot of terror and horror.”
Bishop Tarabay asked the parishes of the Maronite Eparchy to hold Eucharistic Adoration, and to dedicate Masses on the Feast of the Holy Rosary to peace in Lebanon and the Holy Land.
He also pledged to give this weekend’s second collection across all his parishes to meet the basic humanitarian needs of Lebanese citizens fleeing violence in the south.
“My prayers are joined to yours, in beseeching God that justice may prevail, war cease, and peace return, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the Queen of Peace and Our Lady of Lebanon,” Bishop Tarabay said.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) announced on Tuesday they had begun a “targeted and limited” incursion focused on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, after days of airstrikes across the country and a sabotage attack on militants’ pagers that caused 1500 casualties.
The United States announced it supported the attacks and Israel’s “right to defend itself.”
“We agreed on the necessity of dismantling attack infrastructure along the border to ensure that Lebanese Hezbollah cannot conduct October 7-style attacks on Israel’s northern communities,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said of a Monday conversation with Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Pope Francis has expressed “sorrow and great concern” over the escalation, saying on 29 September aboard the papal plane—prior to Israel’s ground operations—that disproportionate force was immoral, even in defence.
Responding to a journalist’s question as to whether Israel has “gone too far” in Lebanon and Gaza, the pope replied that he speaks every day by phone with the people who have been sheltering in Gaza’s Catholic church, “and they tell me about the things that are happening, even the cruelty that happens there.”
A nation’s “defence must always be proportionate to the attack,” he said.
“When there is something disproportionate, one shows a tendency to dominate which goes beyond what is moral.”
Defensive actions that are so “excessive,” he said, “are immoral actions.”
The pope appealed to all parties involved in conflicts in the Middle East “to cease fire immediately in Lebanon, in Gaza, in the rest of Palestine, and in Israel.”
Australia’s large Lebanese diaspora of around 250,000 has been rocked by Israel’s attacks.
Twenty-six-year-old Chad Alam, an engineer/project manager and parishioner of St Joachim’s Lidcombe, said his family were close to locations under attack by Israel, even though they were not close to the southern border.
“We have cousins living in Jbeil and they bombed close by where there was a storage of weapons in a residential building and Israel bombed it,” Alam said.
“Those family members had to move out to their village house in Bcharre. Their house wasn’t destroyed, but you never know what happens in the blink of an eye when you’re that close to the fighting. The roads are blocked, there’s a lack of supplies in the supermarket.
“As Maronites, we’re already under threat in Lebanon. We don’t have a stronghold of the country. We’re not in a position of power. So for us to be further divided and segregated is upsetting.”
He added that schooling was being suspended in some locations so the facilities could be used to house refugees.
According to Arabic-Language Catholic news service ACI Mena, Christian cities and towns across Lebanon have largely been spared direct shelling.
But the area around the town of Ras Ashtar, near an historic monastery where St Charbel is entombed, was targeted.
“The sound of shelling echoed through neighbouring Christian villages and reached the well-known monastery,” ACI Mena reported, adding that locals insisted St Charbel would protect them.
“We’re not afraid. St Charbel is here with us. Bombing a town on the road to his shrine won’t stop people from visiting the monastery. Our prayers won’t stop. Lebanon is under the protection of its saint,” they told ACI Mena.
The report added that Christian villages are becoming crowded with refugees displaced from southern villages.
A million such displaced persons had fled their homes, 90 percent in the last week, according to UN figures.
Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi thanked “all those who are receiving our suffering people in their homes in the safe areas” while emphasising “the need for an immediate cease-fire to avoid more victims, wounded, and displaced people without shelter.”
Protests in Sydney and Melbourne last weekend, at which Hezbollah flags were flown, have drawn the ire of politicians, who have stressed the need for unity and calm in response to the escalation.
Smoke billows from damaged buildings over southern Lebanon, as seen from Tyre 25 September, 2024, following an Israeli airstrike amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces. (OSV News photo/Aziz Taher, Reuters)
