11th October 2024

I am writing this on the 7th October. Always a significant date in my parental family – my late father’s birthday. He used to remind us that he was the same age as the century, having been born in 1900 – just in time to be a Victorian – the Queen died just over three months after he was born!

Now it’s a significant date for everybody. We have just marked the first anniversary of the Hamas raid on the Israeli settlement and festival, when so many people were murdered and others taken hostage.

It was almost inevitable that opinions here would polarise – many supporting the Israeli victims and their government’s response, and many others supporting the Palestinians who have borne the brunt of the Israeli military actions in Gaza. Surely there are rights and wrongs on both sides, and there are innocent civilians suffering on both sides. And now, worryingly, the conflict is spreading to neighbouring countries.

The group who hardly ever get a mention in the reporting from the region are the minority of Christians. Inevitably they are almost exclusively Palestinians, many of them in Gaza, They have suffered along with everyone else there.

I am sure we are all holding up before God in our prayers the situation and those who are endeavouring to resolve the conflict. And let us especially remember our fellow Christians caught in the middle between the Jews and the Moslems.

David T Roberts