Catholic families' lives disrupted by Israeli security wall

Published: 2004-06-29

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (CNS) -- A few months ago, the Handal family could look out their windows and see the rolling hills of Jerusalem on the horizon. Now all they see is concrete as another section of the security wall being constructed by Israel nears completion. "The wall has had a deep psychological impact on my family," said Ghassan Handal, 34, who lives on a tract of land in a northern section of Bethlehem that his family has owned for more than two centuries. Like most of the families in the small neighborhood, the Handals are Catholic. Handal, a science teacher at Bethlehem University, and his brother live with their families in a two-family building behind their parents' home; various aunts and uncles also live in the vicinity. "We just woke up one morning to the sounds of the bulldozers," he said. "The first day they began construction on the wall, my parents opened their living room window and all they saw was gray."

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