Syrian Archbishop: "Does the West Want War and a Divided Syria?"
Archbishop Mourad himself was held hostage by the Islamic State for four months in 2015.
Reports put the death toll at 1,500, including more than 1,000 civilians, women, children.
The current government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, is responsible, Monsignor Mourad said.
He believes that neighboring Turkey is also responsible for the excesses of violence: "Turkey shares the responsibility because the borders with Syria are open at the level of Idlib. That's where the military, these fanatical groups, come through to carry out these massacres."
He appeals to the "international community" and out of all the UN as an alleged "peacekeeping force" for help.
For Archbishop Mourad, all agreements, including the recent one with the Kurds, are "theoretical; what matters is to evaluate their application.
The priority remains to meet the basic needs of the people: drinking water, electricity, wages.
Among the critical factors, two in particular are of great concern: international sanctions and Israeli interference through air raids and incursions into Syrian territory:
"There are internal and external factors that hinder the recovery, especially the daily attacks by Israel. All this is happening without any intervention from the international community, neither the UN nor the European Union."
"On the contrary, it is crucial to stop these attacks on Syria. Because the question is whether the international community wants peace for Syria, or whether it wants to fuel escalation and war and complicate the lives of Syrians. From this perspective, a destroyed and divided Syria seems useful. But if we ask the people, they all say they want a single and united nation, which can live in peace."
Picture: Jacques Mourad © wikicommons, CC BY-SA, #newsFtexoaifpc