IDF Apologizes For Hitting Church, Damaging Virgin Mary Statue

Ha'aretz Daily ^

[RCW2001]

IDF apologizes for hitting church, damaging Virgin Mary statue

By News Agencies

	The statue of the Virgin Mary damaged Thursday by IDF tank fire. (Photo: AP)

The IDF apologized Thursday for striking a church compound, damaging a statue of the Virgin Mary during an incursion in the West Bank city of Bethlehem earlier in the day. The army said it regretted hitting the church and damaging the statue, adding disciplinary action would be taken.

An IDF statement said the church is on a map of holy places and other sites forbidden for soldiers to shoot at. The statement said shots were fired at soldiers in recent days from university buildings near the compound.

An IDF tank shell slammed into the church in a pre-dawn battle. Shrapnel peppered the statue and sliced off the hands and nose, a nun said.

The church compound also houses a hospital and an orphanage. Patients at the hospital were rushed to a safer room during the fighting.

IDF troops and tanks began moving into central Bethlehem from all directions around 1 A.M. and took control of a southern residential section of the city. Residents said soldiers were searching houses and taking up positions in buildings. Tanks were parked 300 meters (yards) from the Church of the Nativity, revered by Christians as the birthplace of Christ.

During a barrage of bullets and artillery, a tank shell punched a bowling ball-sized dent in the thick stone facade of the two-centuries-old Holy Family Church. The stone blocks were blackened and pockmarked.

The damaged Virgin Mary sculpture, with arms outstretched, remained standing on the roof beside an unlit star decoration and a flag of the Vatican.

No one was injured inside the church compound.

The nun in charge of the compound, Sister Sophie, said an IDF tank moved to within 50 meters (yards) of the church hospital and fired a shell that struck the top of the church. Under the sound of heavy machine gun fire, she rushed hospital patients into a different wing of the building. Several women had just given birth in the maternity ward.

[dighton]

GMTA

[Ajnin]

Yeah, you know what your talking about...Oh yeah..no do doubt.. your are an expert! You DKJS!

[RCW2001]

I'll trust the good sister on the scene than your agitprop lightweight commentary insinuating some young soldier(s) used the VM as target practice.

If I were the 'Good Sister' I would say that too, after what she had just witnessed! That 'shrapnel' could have a 'tendancy' to train lower...you know.

[d4now]

The army said it regretted hitting the church and damaging the statue, adding disciplinary action would be taken.

I don't want to believe it's true but why would disciplinary action be necessary if it wasn't deliberate?

As a Catholic I was saddened to read the above but truthfully this bothered me more Palestinian gunmen lynch collaborators in Manger Square.

The IDF and all Israeli authorities will have my continued prayers for their success in fighting terrorism.

Thanks be to G_d no one in the church or hospital was hurt.

[d4now]

Deu 12:3 And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.

Are you implying Catholics are the problem?

[l33t]

I assume that a disciplinary action would be called for because IDF orders preclude engagements with gunmen taking cover behind sensitive sites such as churches in Bethlehem due to negative publicity they create.

[jonatron]

The islamic terrorist usually hide behind churches, schools and apartment buildings to generate this kind of propaganda.

And, I didn't say anything about catholics, just quoted a commandment from the bible.

[dighton]

I don't want to believe it's true but why would disciplinary action be necessary if it wasn't deliberate?

My non-expert opinion: direct hits with artillery would have pulverized the statue. Good thing it wasn't

I'm pinging some FReepers who can speak with authority.

[HockeyPop]

During WWII there were understandings that certain places were off limits to bombing. These included many cultural areas in Italy. The Arabs have a very poor history when it comes to respecting the holy sites. But then they have raised war to a decadent art form.

[d4now]

The more I think about it dighton - I don't believe it was deliberate.

In everything I've learned in the last 17 months the IDF just wouldn't do that.
And it's very true that if it were deliberate the statue would be a pile of dust.

[Centurion2000]

The Christians around there should just say something to the effect of ... "Go ahead and kill these islami-idiots; we'll rebuild and bondo will fax that in a jiffy.

[d4now]

I think there might be a few Catholics who would say something to the effect

"It's a miracle no one in the Church was hit...Mary must have taken the bullets."

[crystalk]

Come on veronica (vero nica="true icon"=ie photograph)...I love Israel as much as you do, but let's not pretend that the young hotheads in the IDF (as poster below says, too young to respect another culture)...did not shoot at this intentionally.

We have all noticed their vandalism at the Christian sites...it is just adolescent wild oats, I know, but why cannot we have a little humor here in the States and let our own young have a life?

[crystalk]

Let me also amend my statement, to say that whatever obscene jokes they tell about nuns and Christians, the IDF are very helpful and have probably saved my life more than once when I wandered where I ought not.

They are not to be COMPARED in meanness to the Muslim Palestinians, who just kill any stranger in their villages without regard to who it might be, lost tourist, even a Greek monk once in awhile, black robes and hat and all.

I am all for the IDF, wish it would be unleashed, but I am not so blind to human nature as to think the jokes (verbal and otherwise) don't exist.

[BlackElk]

Your post is as close as this Catholic has come to hitting the abuse button. Rest well, sir.

[d4now]

see post 27.

[jonatron]

I didn't mean to offend you, I didn't write the bible. If you have issues with it's contents you have issues with your creator, not me!

[RCW2001]

I really do hope that we 'all' are standing in line before God, as a group...to hear His Judgement upon each of our thoughts and motives...

I'm comfortable with mine...are you with yours?

[dighton]

I love Israel as much as you do, but let's not pretend that the young hotheads in the IDF ... did not shoot at this intentionally.

Again, the statue looks far too intact to have taken a direct hit from artillery. I'm pinging a coupla FReepers who'd know.

[BlueLancer]

The article said that shrapnel hit the statue. Shrapnel or debris from an explosive round can carry quite a long way even beyond the direct blast radius. A tank or artillery round hitting the statue would have left nothing but a fine veil of dust floating in the air.

It also says that a tank shell left a bowling-ball sized dent in the side of the building with some blackening of the rocks. Doesn't sound like any 105mm tank shell that I've ever heard of: a sabot would have gone right through and an HE would have brought the wall down. So, maybe the IDF is using "rubber-tank shells" to match the "rubber bullets" against the Palis.