| International News

In a July 14, 2006, Vatican Radio declaration, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, said that Pope Benedict XVI, currently on vacation in the Italian Alps, is following the events along the Israel-Lebanon border “with great attention.”

"The news we are receiving from the Middle East is certainly worrying,” he said.

"The latest dramatic episodes,” the cardinal stressed, “risk degenerating into a conflict with international repercussions.” Israel continued its air strikes in Lebanon July 14, hitting the Beirut international airport, power plants and areas that are said to be linked to the militant group Hezbollah.

Israel today issued three conditions it set for any ceasefire: the release of the two Israeli soldiers seized by Hezbollah in the cross-border raid on July 12 that touched off the current fighting; a halt to rocket fire by Hezbollah; and a decision by the Lebanese government to implement a United Nations resolution calling for the disarmament of Hezbollah.

Lebanese officials told Reuters July 14 that three people died and 40 were wounded by bombs dropped on the Shiite suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah is the dominant group. The officials put the death toll from the two days of air strikes at 63, and the number of wounded at 165.

Hezbollah continued to fire rockets into Israel today, wounding at least 15 people in two northern towns, news services said. On July 13, rockets and mortar shells fired from Lebanon killed two Israelis and sent thousands into bomb shelters.

"As in the past, the Holy See also condemns both the terrorist attacks on the one side and the military reprisals on the other,” Cardinal Sodano said.

He stressed that Israel has a “right to self-defense,” but that “does not exempt it from respecting the norms of international law, especially as regards the protection of civilian populations.”

The cardinal decried the attack on Lebanon, “a free and sovereign nation,” and noted the Holy See’s “closeness to those people who have suffered so much in the defense of their own independence.”

"Once again,” Cardinal Sodano said, “it appears obvious that the only path worthy of our civilization is that of sincere dialogue between the contending parties."

The apostolic nunciatures in Lebanon and Israel also anxiously followed the escalation of violence in the two countries, according to the Italian episcopate’s SIR news agency.

Archbishop Antonio Franco, apostolic nuncio in Israel, said he hopes "wisdom will prevail."

The current hostilities represent a “conflict we do not want,” said Archbishop Luigi Gatti, apostolic nuncio in Lebanon, who ruled out the possibility of "any internal mediation by the church."

Franciscan Father David Jaeger, a Middle East expert living in Israel, said in a July 13 Vatican Radio interview, that “it is necessary to understand the depth and force of Israel’s anger.”

He stressed that "the Lebanese government has a choice: It can continue to allow Hezbollah to control southern Lebanon or it can show some courage, reaffirm Lebanese sovereignty and suppress Hezbollah."

Yet, while suggesting that the violence will subside, he was not optimistic about the future.

“We’ve been in this movie before,” he said. “It is reasonable to assume that eventually, after further bloodshed and destruction, God forbid, some sort of truce will be achieved and some sort of calm will return, until the next time.”

Pope Benedict XVI voiced his growing concern at violence in the Middle East after the praying of the Angelus July 2, 2006.

"Faced, on the one hand, with blind violence that provokes appalling massacres and, on the other, with the threat of a worsening of the crisis which over the last few days has become even more dramatic, what is needed is justice and a serious and credible commitment to peace, which unfortunately are nowhere to be seen,” the pope said.

He prayed that God “illuminate hearts and may no one evade their duty to construct peaceful coexistence, recognizing that all men are brothers, whatever the people to which they belong."