By Awad Rjoob
RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) – The Israeli bombing is indiscriminate and targets both Muslims and Christians, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday while drawing parallels between the Israel's intensified attacks on the Gaza Strip and the 1948 Nakba.
"Christ's birthplace, Bethlehem (Palestinian city in the West Bank), is experiencing unprecedented sadness," President Abbas said, noting that the current Israeli aggression reminds him of the 1948 Nakba.
The "Nakba" or "Catastrophe" is the event in which nearly 800,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes and lands in 1948, following the establishment of Israel.
On the occasion of the Christmas holiday, Abbas said Israeli forces brutally bombed the Evangelical Baptist Hospital, Orthodox Cultural Center, Greek Orthodox Church Hall, and Holy Family Church, as well as mosques, schools, and hospitals in Gaza, and that "these attacks did not differentiate between a Muslim and a Christian," according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
“The occupation's aggression targeted the Christian presence, all of our people, and our Islamic and Christian sanctities in Jerusalem and the West Bank,” he added.
The Palestinian president has called for Christmas to be "a time to stop the war and aggression against our people in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory."
He stressed that the Palestinian people will “continue fighting for a free, independent, and fully sovereign state."
Earlier, in a message of solidarity from the heads of the Christian churches, Christian communities in Palestinian territories announced that Christmas celebrations, including the lighting of the Christmas tree, would be canceled due to the war in Gaza.
Since the attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip, killing at least 20,424 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 54,036 others, according to health authorities in the enclave.
On Nov. 10, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman revised the official death toll of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, lowering the figure to around 1,200 people, and since then, Tel Aviv has not provided any additional information about the casualties.
The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins with half of the coastal territory's housing stock damaged or destroyed, and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely-populated enclave amid shortages of food and clean water.
* Writing by Ikram Kouachi