[Episcopal News Service]
The top ranking Anglican cleric in Jerusalem is threatening to sue the Israeli government if it refuses to pay compensation for the bombing of a church in Gaza City last month.
Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal said he would have no choice but to take legal action if Israel did not fund the costs of repairing St. Philip's Episcopal Church, located within the Ahli Arab Hospital complex.
'I am going to put a claim into the Israeli government and I hope that they will come to terms with compensating the church so that we will rebuild, renovate, repair the damage that was done,' he told ENI. 'But if they don't apologize and pay for the damage they have done, I will have to take them to court.'
Riah was reacting to the strike against the church and the hospital on 24 January. Israeli Brigadier-General Tzvika Fogel claimed that Israeli helicopters had fired five missiles at a suspected Palestinian weapons factory but that two of the projectiles had malfunctioned, one of them landing in the 'vicinity' of St. Philip's.
Riah, however, took a different view of the events. 'Well, certainly I was shocked, not because the missile missed its target and hit our church, but because we were targeted as a church,' he said. He estimated the damages to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, including damages to the hospital.
'The roof will have to be changed, the walls will have to be rebuilt,' he said. 'And with the [recent winter] rains and no roof, the damage will be far greater than when it was hit on January 24.'
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