Being sacrificed this Holy Week

THE MIDDLE EAST has been recognized as the center of Christianity worldwide, but this Holy Week, the inhabitants of this region must be asking why they have been condemned to hell on earth since Christ died to save them.

Another Holy Week has arrived which sees more death and destruction wrought on hundreds of defenceless people in the Middle East.The sad October 7, 2023 occurrence, following a Hamas attack on a music festival on the Gaza border where more than 14- hundred were murdered and scores more abducted, unleashed an unprecedented response from the Israeli Defence Forces. Bombs rained down on Palestinian towns and villages almost non-stop until a ceasefire was declared in 2025. By that time, most mosques and churches, hospitals, schools and residential areas in Gaza lay waste amidst mounds of concrete and steel. But buried beneath this were the bodies of more than 82,000 Palestinians, sacrificed on the altar of Zionist expansionism.

For Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land, access to traditional Holy sites was limited or totally off limits. Christmas 2023 was therefore a nightmare; and that nightmare never ended. It has continued into the 2026 Lenten period and The Holy Ramadan celebrated by Christians and Muslim devotees respectively.

Notwithstanding the declared ceasefire, signed on October 9, 2025, the Israeli army continued to occupy Palestinian territory in Gaza, and Jewish settlers continued their expansion into the Occupied West Bank without regard for international law. Frequent skirmishes have been regularly reported, often resulting in the death of Palestinians, and smaller acts of retaliation doing some damage in Israel itself.

Then in June 2025, the Middle East once again captured the attention of the world when the United States of America and Israel suddenly broke off negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran over nuclear non-proliferation and began raining bombs upon Teheran. This was met by fierce retaliation by the Iranians which must have scared the US and Zionist aggressors. Twelve days later a truce was called. The US President and Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declared that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “obliterated”. The death toll from this war was upwards of 3,492 in Iran alone including 1,300 civilians. And yet more persons were sacrificed in Israel, Lebanon and the Gulf States. Over a million people were left displaced in Lebanon.

But the worst was yet to come. Once again, in the midst of negotiations being brokered by Oman between the United States of America, Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran, the former suddenly began a bombing campaign on several Iranian cities. This current conflagration quickly spread to other countries in the area which all housed United States military bases.

The death toll as reported, has included 165 children slaughtered when their school was bombed in Iran.To date, no one has apologized for this crime. Missiles and drones are being launched daily at a cost of billions of dollars in military armaments destroying infrastructure.

This war has impacted significantly on the cost of fuel, liquid gas, fertilizers and most other items worldwide and has shown no signs of abating. The aggressors in Israel and the United States, who have never justified the reasons for this new war, seem not to know how to climb down from this hellish mountain.

And in the process, the wanton destruction continues into this Good Friday as Christians commemorate Christ crucified; hundreds of others made in His image are also being sacrificed.We are also seeing the loss of lives and livelihoods of millions brought into this senseless exercise to satisfy the overinflated egos of the leaders of the United States of America and Israel.This Holy Week for many people will be remembered for generations for the darkness it has brought to the world.This Good Friday the world mourns for the thousands being sacrificed on the altar of expediency, arrogance and greed, amidst the savagery.