On Friday March 3rd, 2006, around 5:30 PM, an Israeli man entered the lower part of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, together with his wife and daughter with some explosives, and they did put them to fire …

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1. On Friday March 3rd, 2006, around 5:30 PM, an Israeli man entered the lower part of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, together with his wife and daughter with some explosives, and they did put them to fire behind the sacred Grotto of the Annunciation. When the faithful in prayer in the upper part of the Basilica (Ceremony of Via Crucis) of the First Friday of the Lent time, heard the explosion they panicked, then the faithful captured the attackers, and locked them at the guard room. Thousands of people, from Nazareth and surrounding villages from different denominations and religions gathered to defend the Basilica and stayed there till late night. Christian leaders together with Muslims and the Mayor of Nazareth and civil Authorities collaborated together in order to save the attackers from the hands of the furious crowd and tried to calm the crowd down. Israeli Authorities and in the same night apologized to the Christian Leaders, to both, the Foreign Affairs of the Vatican and to the local authorities: To His Beatitude as well to the Custos of the Franciscan Fathers,, Rev. Pierbatuista Pizzaballa.

2. The Basilica of the Annunciation is one of the Holiest Christian Places in the world locally and internationally. Aggression against these Holy Places is like the aggression against life, people and faithful communities.

  • This incident indicates that education is the country needs renewal, wither religious or national. Religious education must guide every faithful to respect and accept others religiously different. It must free faithful from every fanatic attitudes that cancels others and which leads to such attacks like the one we witnessed last night.

 

  • National education has to educate all citizens in the State of Israel: Jews, Christians, Muslims and Druze on the concept that Land and State are for all of them alike, and that none of them is the son of the State while others are strangers to it, otherwise such misconcept leads directly or indirectly to attacking them or getting rid of them.

3. We hope that the State will work hard and decisively in this regard, so everyone will be respecting the Holy Places no matter which or to which religion it belongs. So that respect and mutual acceptance will grow at the national level, and with such values a sane wholestic society may be built with all its people. We also wish the State to take all measures needed to protect Holy Places and mainly establishing Tourist Police.

4. We appreciate to the Israeli Authorities, to Mr. Ehud Olmert the Deputee Prime Minister, and to the Israeli Foreign Affairs their apologies to the Christian Leaders. In this we see their understanding of the gravity of such incident and the importance of the educational efforts that must be undertaken to avoid such incidents under any circumstances.

We thank all the crowd and from different religious backgrounds, who came yesterday to defend our Holy Places and the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. In this we see a conscience to strengthen the unity of the people and the effort to avoid such incidents before it happens.

This Statement is translated from the original Arabic Statement.

This is not the official translation