Catholics in the UAE: ‘Pope’s visit a testament to peace and tolerance’

The Asian community – from the Philippines, India and Bangladesh – is the biggest Catholic grouping in the UAE. (AFP)
Updated 02 February 2019
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Catholics in the UAE: ‘Pope’s visit a testament to peace and tolerance’

  • The Asian community – from the Philippines, India and Bangladesh – forms the biggest Catholic grouping in the UAE
  • The St Mary’s Catholic Church, in Dubai, boasts what is thought to be the country’s biggest parish in terms of attendance

DUBAI: Roman Catholics in Dubai - home to the largest community in the Arabian Gulf - believe that the visit of Pope Francis to the region could be a symbol of peace and tolerance in the wider Middle East.

For some, the visit is a confirmation of their faith and an opportunity to re-affirm their Catholic heritage in the tolerant environment of the UAE; for others, it is a sign that religion can be a positive force in a region often beset by sectarian problems.

Chris Pickthall, a British businessman who has lived in the UAE for 13 years, told Arab News: “I’ve noticed in the UAE that the less you have in material terms, the more faith you have. I was in church yesterday and the whole congregation was incredibly excited. Most are Asian Catholics and I would hope their example would inspire other expat Catholics to rekindle their faith. Rich Westerners often forget their religion with all the distractions in this part of the world.”

Raad Jabouri Al Skeikh, an Iraqi Catholic whose forefathers built churches in Amara and Basra and who has lived in the UAE for 17 years, said: “I think it’s a message to those who have sectarian views that they should change their ways - live and let live in the modern world.”

The Asian community - from the Philippines, India and Bangladesh - is the biggest Catholic grouping in the UAE, and its members will set the tone for the Papal visit. They see it as a re-affirmation of the values they learned at home, and by which they try to live in the Middle East.

Before Christmas, in St Mary’s Church in Dubai, hours before the sun has even started to show on the horizon, thousands of worshipers flock to take part in “Misa de Gallo” – a nine-day series of masses that leads up to Christmas.

The faithful believe that when they complete the devotional series of Masses, a centuries old Catholic tradition, their wishes will come true.

Dubai residents Princess and Noel Caceres have never missed a mass for three years even if that has meant going a night without sleep.

“Although we have a very busy schedule working in sales, we would never miss a mass. Especially the Simbang Gabi (a term in the Philippines used to describe Misa de Gallo),” Princess said.

“I’m so glad that we get to attend Simbang Gabi here in Dubai, because it’s a very important tradition for us,” she added. Hailing from a devoted Catholic Filipino family, Princess said that despite the distance from her home, she has never felt alienated since she moved to UAE in 2011.

With approximately 1 million members, she said she was immediately introduced to a large Catholic community, with masses regularly attended by up to 2,000 worshipers in St Mary’s.

“I never had any difficulties being a Catholic here,” she said, adding that she was always impressed by the large congregations attending church services, especially during “feast” masses such as Christmas where the crowd increases to about 20,000 people. “I’m thankful that the UAE has become really open to other religions,” she added.

Al Sheikh, whose ancestral home in Mosul, Iraq, was devastated by the Daesh occupation four years ago, agreed: “Both my sons Gabriel and Sam were born and christened here, and Gabriel will take his first communion later this year. Not every government allows different religions to practice so openly, with the protection of a tolerant state.”

Filipinos form a large part of the UAE’s Catholic population, which the Apostolic Vicariate Of Southern Arabia (AVOSA) says is composed of more than 150 nationalities, who worship in nine accredited churches across the UAE.

Other nationalities in the Catholic church’s UAE congregation include Indians, who can also attend masses in a variety of languages: Malayalam, Konkani, Tamil, Urdu.

“Religion is a big part of my life, growing up in Goa. Whenever I missed a mass, I’d feel so incomplete, like a part of me was missing,” said Daisy Dacosta, who moved from India to the UAE in 2014.

She said she thought she would find it difficult as a practicing Catholic in a Muslim country, but said there were many opportunities to worship. “It’s really a good thing, there are masses every day, and you can choose the one that fits your schedule,” she explained.

The St Mary’s Catholic Church, in Dubai, boasts what is thought to be the country’s biggest parish in terms of attendance. It conducts 25 English masses every week, with congregations of more than 3,000 per service, a church official told Arab News.

Catholic churches in the UAE also offer catechism classes for children, where they learn about their religion.

“I was amazed when I saw a crowd of young kids at the church when I attended a service once. It’s nice to see that Catholic churches here in the UAE are also engaging the youth,” Dacosta said.

Catholics have also formed community groups with the full support of their parishes which allow them to conduct activities on church premises.  “All the parishes in the UAE provide a room or a hall to all communities registered under them,” Art Los Banos, a Dubai-based socio-civic leader, said.

Some would allocate their weekends to attend church-based community gatherings, as these groups provide “life support system,” especially for expats who struggle with being away from their families. “Having a church in all of the emirates is really a blessing,” Los Banos, who has been in the UAE since 2001 and has seen significant changes in the community over the years, said.

Pickthall, whose two children were born and baptized in the UAE, said: “Many of my Filipino friends at church may live difficult lives, but their fate and devotion is incredible. It’s a lesson for the rest of us that there are higher things in life.”


Syria arrests alleged Daesh commander behind shrine attack plot: state media

Updated 3 sec ago
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Syria arrests alleged Daesh commander behind shrine attack plot: state media

Authorities arrested “Abu Al-Hareth Al-Iraqi, commander in the Daesh organization,” said SANA
The interior ministry at that time had posted pictures of four men it identified as members of an arrested Daesh cell

DAMASCUS: Syrian Arab Republic authorities have arrested an alleged Daesh commander accused of planning a foiled attack targeting a Shiite Muslim shrine near Damascus, state media reported Saturday.
Authorities arrested “Abu Al-Hareth Al-Iraqi, commander in the Daesh organization,” said state news agency SANA, citing an unidentified intelligence official and using an Arabic acronym for Daesh.
He was “behind the planning of a number of operations,” SANA reported, adding that “the cell that was thwarted in its plan to attack the Sayyida Zeinab shrine” was working under his direction.
Last month, Syrian authorities said they foiled an Daesh attempt to blow up the shrine, Syria’s most visited Shiite pilgrimage site, located south of Damascus.
The interior ministry at that time had posted pictures of four men it identified as members of an arrested Daesh cell.
It was the first time the new Damascus authorities said they had foiled an Daesh attack.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Saturday that the man arrested is “an Iraqi national who was one of the second-tier commanders in Daesh and spent his recent years” in the Badia desert region.
Iran-backed guards used to be deployed at the gates of the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, but fled in December shortly before Sunni Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus, toppling president Bashar Assad.
Over the years, Shiite shrines have been a frequent target of attacks by Sunni extremists of the Daesh group, both in Syria and neighboring Iraq.
Daesh seized large swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory in the early years of Syria’s civil war, declaring a cross-border “caliphate” in 2014.
US-backed Kurdish-led forces in Syria territorially defeated its proto-state in 2019, but the militants have maintained a presence in the country’s vast desert.

‘Welcome back’: Israelis cheer, cry as hostages freed from Gaza

Updated 15 February 2025
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‘Welcome back’: Israelis cheer, cry as hostages freed from Gaza

  • All three men were taken from Nir Oz, a kibbutz community near the Gaza border
  • They watched the release from the town of Carmei Gat in southern Israel

TEL AVIV: Holding up signs reading “sorry and welcome back” and “complete the ceasefire,” hundreds of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv’s “Hostages Square” on Saturday to watch Hamas release three Israeli hostages from Gaza.
In smaller groups, friends and relatives of the released men — Israeli-American Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, Israeli-Russian Sasha Trupanov, 29, and Israeli-Argentine Yair Horn, 46 — shed tears of joy at the sight of their loved ones, who were made to address a crowd in Gaza from a stage alongside rifle-wielding militants.
All three men were taken from Nir Oz, a kibbutz community near the Gaza border, during Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 which sparked the war.
Dekel-Chen’s wife, Avital, who gave birth to the couple’s third daughter two months after her husband was seized, was waiting for him at an army base in southern Israel.
“My breath has returned. He looks so handsome,” she said following his release in a call to her sister aired by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster.
Other relatives of Dekel-Chen said they were relieved to see him alive.
“I am excited, and I see that he looks OK, and I want to hug him,” his mother-in-law told Kan, wiping away tears.
Dekel-Chen’s sister-in-law said: “Thank God that everything is OK and they were on their feet.”
They watched the release from the town of Carmei Gat in southern Israel, where some residents of Nir Oz have moved to since the attack.
In Kfar Saba, in central Israel, a friend of the Horn family, Ronnie Milo, told AFP that she was experiencing “unimaginable joy” on seeing him return alive.
Ronli Nissim, of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group, said: “It’s an emotional roller coaster, and also very bittersweet.”
“Every time someone comes back... we are just a jumble of emotions,” she said.
“But then we’re thinking about everyone who’s left behind, and we know that they are mistreated, we know that they’re in hell, and they’re just waiting to be released.”
So far under the Gaza truce, 19 Israeli hostages have been released in exchange of hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli custody.
The 42-day first phase of the truce stipulates the release of a total of 33 hostages, including eight Israel says are dead, in exchange for some 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.
Out of the 251 people abducted during the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas militants, 70 remain in Gaza, with half of them dead according to the Israeli military.
In Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, Trupanov’s friends and family clapped, cheered and cried as they watched the 29-year-old, who had been held by Hamas’s ally Islamic Jihad, step out of a car in Gaza.
In a statement from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, Trupanov’s family said they were grateful to see him return.
“Finally, Sasha can be surrounded by his loved ones and begin a new path,” said the statement, adding that they did not know if Trupanov was “aware that his father, Vitaly, was murdered on October 7.”
“This knowledge — or lack thereof — will completely transform his homecoming from a day of great joy to one of deep mourning for his beloved father,” they said.


Kremlin thanks Hamas for freeing Russian-Israeli hostage: state media

Updated 15 February 2025
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Kremlin thanks Hamas for freeing Russian-Israeli hostage: state media

  • Moscow welcomed the freeing of Alexander Trufanov and expresses its gratitude to Hamas

MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Saturday said it was grateful to Palestinian militant group Hamas for freeing a Russian-Israeli hostage from Gaza in another prisoner exchange with Israel.
“Moscow welcomes the freeing of Alexander Trufanov (identified by Israel as Sasha Trupanov) and expresses its gratitude to the Hamas leadership for taking this decision,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.


Lebanon official media report Israeli drone strike in south

Updated 15 February 2025
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Lebanon official media report Israeli drone strike in south

  • An Israeli enemy drone carried out a strike targeting the outskirts of Ainata, said NNA

BEIRUT: Lebanese official media said an Israeli drone struck the country’s south on Saturday, without reporting casualties, days before a deadline in a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
“An Israeli enemy drone carried out a strike” targeting the outskirts of the town of Ainata, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) said, adding that “nobody was hurt” and that “drones and surveillance aircraft are still flying over the area at low altitude.”


Three Israeli hostages freed in Gaza, Israel releases 369 Palestinians in exchange

Updated 15 February 2025
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Three Israeli hostages freed in Gaza, Israel releases 369 Palestinians in exchange

  • Exchange of hostages and prisoners maintains ceasefire, with buses carrying freed Palestinians arriving to cheering crowds in Ramallah, Gaza
  • The swap takes place after negotiations, with both sides focusing on the next phase to return the remaining hostages and end the war

KHAN YOUNIS:  Hamas released Israeli hostages Iair Horn, Sagui Dekel Chen and Sasha (Alexander) Troufanov in Gaza on Saturday and Israel freed some 369 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange, after mediators helped avert a collapse of the fragile ceasefire.
The three Israelis were led onto a stage with Palestinian Hamas militants armed with automatic rifles standing on each side of them at the site in Khan Younis, live footage showed, before they were taken back into Israel by Israeli forces.
Shortly afterwards, buses carrying freed Palestinian prisoners and detainees departed Israel’s Ofer jail in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The first bus arrived in Ramallah to a cheering crowd, some waving Palestinian flags.

Freed Palestinian prisoners gesture from a bus after being released by Israel as part of a hostages-prisoners swap and a ceasefire deal in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, February 15, 2025. (Reuters)

“We didn’t expect to be freed, but God is great, God set us free,” said Musa Nawarwa, 70, from the West Bank town of Bethlehem, who was serving two life terms for killings of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.
Buses carrying some of the hundreds of Palestinian freed prisoners and detainees, some flashing victory signs as they hung from the windows, arrived later at the European Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

A few were returning to an enclave they have not seen for years, before it was blasted into rubble by Israeli airstrikes and shelling in 15 months of war. But most were rounded up after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The ceasefire’s second phase would usher in negotiations to return the remaining living hostages among the 251 seized that day, and complete an Israeli military withdrawal before a final end to the war and the reconstruction of Gaza.

Israeli hostages Iair Horn, 46, left, Sagui Dekel Chen, 36, center left, and Alexander Troufanov, 29, right, are escorted by Hamas on a stage before being handed over to the Red Cross in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip on Feb. 15, 2025. (AP)

Argentina-born Iair Horn, 46, was taken captive together with his younger brother Eitan. Horn appeared to have lost considerable weight in captivity.
“Now, we can breathe a little. Our Iair is home after surviving hell in Gaza. Now, we need to bring Eitan back so our family can truly breathe,” Horn’s family said in a statement.
The swap of the three Israelis for the 369 Palestinians allayed growing alarm that the ceasefire agreement could unravel before the end of the 42-day first stage of the truce pact in effect since January 19.
In what has become known as Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, people broke into cheers and tears after hearing the Red Cross was on its way to deliver the three to Israeli military forces.
Dekel Chen, a US-Israeli, Troufanov, a Russian Israeli, and Horn along with his brother Eitan were seized in Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the communities near Gaza’s border that were overrun by Hamas gunmen on October 7, 2023.
Some of the dozens of masked Islamist Hamas fighters deployed at the handover site carried rifles seized from the Israeli military during the October attack, Hamas sources said.

On the handover stage in Khan Younis, the hostages were made to give short statements in Hebrew and militants presented Horn with an hourglass and photo of another Israeli hostage still in Gaza and his mother, reading “time is running out (for the hostages still in Gaza).”
Troufanov was abducted with his mother, grandmother and girlfriend — all of whom were released during a brief November 2023 pause in hostilities. His father was killed in the attack on Nir Oz, one of the worst-hit communities, where one in four people either died or were taken hostage.

A freed Palestinian prisoner is hugged by a boy after being released by Israel as part of a hostages-prisoners swap and a ceasefire deal in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, February 15, 2025. (Reuters)

On October 7, Dekel Chen, 36, left his pregnant wife and two little daughters in the family safe room to go out and fight gunmen rampaging through the kibbutz.
He embraced his tearful wife Avital tightly and said “perfect” with a big smile when she told him the name of their baby daughter, who he has not yet seen, was Shahar Mazal, Hebrew for “dawn” and “luck,” in a video released by the military.
Nineteen Israeli and five Thai hostages have been released so far, with 73 still in captivity, around half of whom have been declared dead in absentia by Israeli authorities.
Prospects for the ceasefire surviving have been shaken by US President Donald Trump’s call for Palestinians to be resettled permanently out of Gaza, and for the tiny enclave to be turned over to the US to be redeveloped as a seaside resort. That idea has been rejected out of hand by Palestinian groups, Arab states and Western allies of Washington.