Posted on 04/22/2002 7:19:12 PM PDT by Democrats are liars
| Gun battle at Church of the Nativity |
Heavy gunfire has broken out between Israeli forces and armed Palestinians holed up inside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
Stun grenades were heard around the church and a puff of white smoke rose up from the compound.
A Palestinian policeman inside the compound said Israeli fire was hitting the church walls.
Israel's army said Palestinians opened fire from several positions in the church compound and soldiers returned fire.
Bethlehem Governor Mohammed Mdani, who is inside the church, said the Israelis fired first, and armed Palestinians shot back. There were no reports of injuries in the 15-minute exchange.
Mr Mdani said fires set by the stun grenades damaged two rooms of Greek Orthodox monks and were put out.
A courtyard statue of the Virgin Mary near St. Catherine's church also was damaged by gunfire but the extent cannot yet be determined.
Palestinian policemen inside the church said Israeli soldiers were leaning ladders against compound walls.
The army has leaned up ladders before to throw in leaflets urging surrender and to allow people interested in leaving the church to get out. Israel has promised Christian leaders it would not storm the church.
On Sunday, five people used the ladders to get out, two civilians, two Palestinian police and one member of Yasser Arafat's guard.
The holiest thing there is a tunnel and grotto well underground, the church itself is just a big stone/concrete box with no windows and I will bet the walls are four if not six feet thick.
This is not some ticky-tacky Pallie apartment bldg ready to fall down. The new Franciscan church, a Catholic pilgrim hotel, and other structures stand around it (a Greek monastery is one)...those too are of stone.
The Pallies inside almost certainly lack sufficient explosives to do anything to the church worth reporting on....and the Israelis would have no motive, this is one of the leading tourist attractions, and also it would irritate Christians. Surely no Christian thinks that Israel would destroy this church.
If they did, though, I think they would be on their own against Islam from then on!
As is the Al Aqsa mosque. But Sharon visits it and Arafat launches the intifada.
The Wailing Wall is only a building as well. And it's not even a whole building.
The Kaaba in Mecca is only a building.
And on the secular side....
The Twin Towers of the WTC was only a building (two actually).
The Pentagon is only a building. I guess we should have just shrugged our shoulders after 9/11. "Oh well,it's just a building."
I am interested in defending Christians. I'm not aware that there actually are any inside that building.
Bang, bang. Bang. That's a Mosambique group. And patterns are for shotguns.
And as it was the Pali gunman who shot the lock off the door and took priests hostage and are defiling the Church of the Nativity, the Christian world is turned against. . .
Subsequent posters have been astute enough to note that Christ is in the heart.
I recall in Chicago's Old Town in the summer of '69 a dozen figures in burlap robes and sandals silently filed past with signs Christ Never Said To Build A Church.
I hadn't thought about that for thirty-three years.
Shine? I don't need no stinking shrine. I don't worhip rocks and buildings. One's body, mind and spirit should be a temple for God's divine presence, not some crummy shrine.
Yoda?
The church is merely bricks and morter, it has nothing to do with the holiness of the spot.
I'm sorry this disturbs you so much, but you really must know, as a Christian, that Jesus said "Where ever there are two or more gathered in My name, there I shall be also". THAT is what is important to us.
For example, can you improve on the meaning of this comment from your #23?
I must say, though, that you took so many turns, you lost me.
What exactly is your point ?
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