GAZA STRIP: UNKNOWN ASSAILANTS ATTACK CHRISTIAN SCHOOL

Amid lawlessness and threats, tiny religious minority’s fears grow.

ISTANBUL, June 4 (Compass Direct News) – An attack on a Christian school in Gaza last weekend has created fear among the strip’s tiny religious minority, a Palestinian Christian said. Armed attackers broke into the El-Manara school in Gaza City at 2 a.m. on Saturday (May 31), according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR). The assailants tied down two school guards and beat them before stealing a bus belonging to the Palestinian Bible Society, the PCHR reported. A Palestinian Christian leader who requested anonymity for security reasons said that police had reportedly arrested one of the assailants. But he said it was too early to say who was behind the attack. “It created a lot of fear, and some people are terrified,” he told Compass. Also in Gaza City, a bomb was detonated outside of the Zahwa Rosary School, run by Catholic nuns, at 4 a.m. on May 16. “Christians in Gaza are targeted,” the Palestinian Christian source said, listing attacks and religiously motivated death threats that members of the minority often receive by telephone, but he also noted the context of lawlessness. “At the same time, you have a ‘loose’ situation in Gaza where people are using weapons and trying to steal.”