Catholic cleric forgives Nazareth church attackers

JERUSALEM, Mar 7 (Reuters) A Roman Catholic cleric granted forgiveness to a family who threw firecrackers inside the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth in an assault that touched off protests by Israeli Arabs.

Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Roman Catholic Church's custodian of holy sites in Israel and the Palestinian territories, met the family at a police detention centre where they have been held since Friday's incident.

''We as religious Christians have to behave and think as religious Christians and the first thing we have to do is forgive without forgetting,'' Pizzaballa said yesterday.

He told Reuters the family had expressed deep remorse during the meeting and asked for forgiveness for the assault which they have said they mounted out of desperation after two of their children were put into foster care.

The incident sparked anger among Israel's Arab minority who took it as an attack against their community.

Israeli-Arabs have long complained about discrimination in the Jewish state. Israeli officials say the Arab community, 20 per cent of the population, enjoys full civil rights.

''It's necessary to give also an important message of justice to the Christians and all the society in the country,'' Pizzaballa said in response to a question about whether charges should be pressed against the family.

After the firecrackers exploded in the church, brawls erupted between Israeli Arabs and police in which a dozen officers and a dozen civilians were injured.

Haim Habibi, an Israeli Jew, his Polish-Christian wife Violette and their grown daughter entered the church disguised as Christian pilgrims with firecrackers and small gas canisters hidden in a baby's stroller.

Police said the family had ''no connection to any political group, neither right nor left-wing'' but had financial troubles and a history of involvement in disturbances.

''I have nothing against Muslims or Christians. It is not logical for me to do such a thing to them, on the contrary. The only thing I want is to get my children back,'' Habibi told reporters during a court hearing on Saturday.

In 1999, then Palestinian President Yasser Arafat granted the family refuge in the West Bank city of Ramallah after they applied to the Palestinian Authority for political asylum from Israel.

The Church of the Annunciation is built above a sunken grotto where, according to Roman Catholic tradition, the angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that she was to bear Jesus.

The church is maintained by the Fransiscan order which Pizzaballa heads in the Holy Land.

REUTERS OM RK0810