Pax Christi priest denied entry to Israel

Father Nandino Capovilla

Source: Pax Christi Italia

Father Nandino Capovilla, priest of the Diocese of Venice and former National Coordinator of Pax Christi Italia, was denied entry by the Israeli authorities at Tel Aviv airport and returned to Italy on alleged security grounds. He was in the Holy Land for a pilgrimage as part of the Bridges, Not Walls campaign of Pax Christi Italia, an initiative seeking to build relationships, overcome divisions, and open paths to reconciliation.

Pax Christi International has expressed its solidarity with Father Nandino, "recognising in his commitment a concrete sign of our shared vocation to be 'artisans of peace.' We walk alongside him, united in work and prayer for a just peace, one rooted in the dignity of every person, the defence of human rights, and the tireless pursuit of reconciliation.

Norberto Julini, Coordinator of the Bridges, Not Walls Campaign for Pax Christi Italia, said: "Fr Nandino Capovilla, founder of the "Bridges, Not Walls" Campaign for Palestine of Pax Christi Italy, on 11 August was denied entry into Israel at Tel Aviv airport because, according to the Israeli authorities, "considerations of public security, public safety or public order" weighed against him, making him a dangerous person.

"He was cited under Amendment No 28 to the Law on Entry into Israel (No. 5712-1952), which prohibits the entry of any foreigner who has made 'public calls for a boycott of Israel' or of any area under its control. Such foreigners are denied entry, visas and residence permits.

"Fr Nandino was sent back home after seven hours of detention in a small room under surveillance, where he was kept without his phone and without his luggage."

After his release, Fr Nandino said: "I AM FREE! They just let me out. They returned my phone and suitcase. BUT PLEASE: TELL ANYONE WHO WRITES ABOUT THIS THAT ONE LINE IS ENOUGH TO SAY THAT I AM OKAY, WHILE ALL OTHER WORDS SHOULD BE USED TO CALL FOR SANCTIONS AGAINST THE STATE THAT, BY MISTAKE, BOMBS MOSQUES AND CHURCHES, WHILE IT CONTINUES TO PRETEND THAT ITS ATROCITIES ARE JUST EXAGGERATIONS.

I DO NOT AUTHORIZE ANY JOURNALIST TO INTERVIEW ME ABOUT MY SEVEN HOURS OF DETENTION UNLESS THEY WRITE ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN PRISONERS ON THEIR OWN LAND FOR SEVENTY YEARS."

"I have estimated - added Fr Nandino - that, in those very hours, at least 400 Palestinian children were in various ways struck by Israeli violence. And we are supposed to be a danger to Israel simply because we see and say what we see! Those who do not want peace fear the truth."

"They wanted me to sign a statement admitting that I was a dangerous person. They got irritated because I refused. I didn't sign it, and I say that all of us, peoples and governments of democratic nations, should no longer sign anything with Israel."

"They want us blind, complicit and obedient, but we will not be" - added the President of Pax Christi, Bishop Giovanni Ricchiuti, President of Pax Christi, who is leading the current pilgrimage in Palestine, with National Coordinator Antonio De Lellis.

This afternoon, the pilgrims were due to meet the Patriarch Emeritus, Mgr Michel Sabbah, who lives in the Christian village of Taybeh, which has been the target of attacks by Zionist settlers.

Fr. Nandino Capovilla is parish priest in Marghera, near Venice, in a parish that welcomes a melting pot of different ethnicities and cultures, with whom he engages in a spirit of hospitality and respect, fostering what the late Bishop Tonino Bello - president of Pax Christi in the 1990s - called the "conviviality of differences."

Together with friends, Fr Nandino founded the 'Bridges, Not Walls' Campaign in 2004, during the Second Intifada, when he witnessed bloody events in the West Bank and the beginning of the construction of the separation wall between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the two lungs of the Holy Land.

The Campaign is known for organising several trips every year to Palestine and Israel, called 'pilgrimages of justice,' with the aim of showing and directly experiencing the occupation, colonization, denial of rights, apartheid, demolitions, forced displacements, theft of water and land by settlers, repression, and imprisonment. It also seeks to make known the forms of nonviolent resistance in Palestinian villages and cities, and the extraordinary people who practice them.

In Israel, the Campaign meets representatives of civil society who, though in the minority, bear witness to their dissent in the face of abuses and violence against Palestinian Arabs, but also against Israelis themselves.

Each trip ends with a commitment to bear witness, using the 'unstitched mouth' that is unafraid to tell the truth about facts and to call crimes against humanity by their name - crimes that are being committed in that land we call 'Holy' because Jesus of Nazareth was born there, preached there, was crucified there by the occupying Romans, and rose from the dead there.

The website: www.bocchescucite.org hosts a daily press review along with prayers by Mgr Sabbah.

Recently, Fr Nandino led an Italian tour of Kairos Palestine and continues his testimony work, presenting the interview book with Andrea Didomenico, former OCHA official in Palestine, co-written with Betta Tusset, entitled 'Under the Sky of Gaza.'

On 29 November 2025, in Padua, at the University Human Rights Centre, the 'Bridges, Not Walls' Campaign will organise in Italy the 48th UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.