Conflict in the Middle East

Further Israeli strikes in Gaza cast doubt on the White House’s peace plan for the Gaza Strip, a University of Notre Dame scholar told OSV News.

The Catholic Near East Welfare Association-Pontifical Mission in Lebanon and Syria reported that an Israeli airstrike on a residential apartment directly adjacent to CNEWA-supported Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in the center of Gaza City damaged hospital facilities late July 29.

Lebanon’s Cardinal Bechara Rai, the patriarch of the country’s Maronite Catholic Church, has urged for prayer and guidance as Lebanese President Joseph Aoun makes a critical visit to the White House July 21 to present President Donald Trump with a plan on how to disarm the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group and secure Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon.

Heated rivalries among soccer fans bubbled to the surface in the lead-up to the World Cup Final that ultimately saw Spain clinch a 1-0 victory over Argentina in an intense match. Yet for Christians in Gaza, the final game was a much-needed moment of joy and a reprieve from the hardship and suffering of war.

The Trump administration signed a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, with Iranian officials, a tentative framework to end the war in Iran, but uncertainty remained about an end to the conflict.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — After President Donald Trump, Pakistani mediators, and Iranian officials said a framework has been reached for a deal to end the war in Iran, a Catholic expert in peacekeeping said that while there is cause for optimism, key obstacles remain. Trump said June 14 that an agreement had been reached, and […]

A Catholic church in northern Mozambique was targeted in an attack by the Islamic State group that has carried out attacks against Christians and Muslims in the country since 2017.