“Are political considerations so powerful that they silence men of faith and block any move to bring succor to brothers in distress?” Religious Affairs Minister Yitzhak Raphael posed the question in a strongly worded attack on the silence of church leaders over the slaughter and maltreatment of Christians in Lebanon. Speaking to a National Religious Party gathering in Tel Aviv, he blasted the “strange silence” of church leaders.
Meanwhile, informed sources closely familiar with the events in Lebanon told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency late last week, before the truce went into effect, that the fighting there has been particularly savage, with both sides often flagrantly violating the basic canons of the Geneva Conventions. Wounded fighters and POWs often did not receive the minimal consideration dictated by the Conventions, these sources said.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.