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