I have just seen your picture of the Palestinian child who was injured and bleeding after an Israeli missile attack (May 17). I have also seen on television Palestinian youths having to resort to throwning stones, sticks and bottles at Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles, and when they are attacked by Israeli planes the only defence the Palestinians have is to run for shelter. The world watches the great injustice going on and does nothing as innocent people lose their lives and their homes.

I do not see what is happening in Palestine as war; it's murder. It is equal to the Americans firing missiles from 50 and 60 miles' distance on a sleeping city and being indifferent to what they hit or how many casualties they inflict. If the attackers lose any of their own people they step up their violence on those already suffering under them. It is like the bully who says: ''Stand and let me punch you or I will give you worse than last time.''

I am very disappointed at the silence of churches worldwide, that after a few muted whispers of opposition to the wars in the Middle East there has been silence when every pulpit in Britain and America should have been pounded with the opposition of the clergy to thousands of more deaths of the wholly innocents in yet more

wars. It may be politic of the churches not to speak up for the truth and justice when the leaders of two Christian countries act as the aggressors on a third country, but it is not Christian. Jesus said: ''By their works you shall know them.''

I do not know if the two western leaders who are said to be Christians are in politics to assist spreading the Christian gospel, or because being in the church is for them a politic action to have taken.

I would have thought it right for the Kirk's General Assembly to have opened with a statement on what the church believes about the most important happening in the world today: the wars in the Middle East. It must take its opinion outside the Kirk's buildings for there are thousands more listening to it from outside than are in its pews each week.

Peter Stangoe,

22 Liddel Road, Cumbernauld.

I MUST call Alan Clayton's version of Ariel Sharon's policies to account (Letters, May 17). Mr Sharon is about to embark on the ''ethnic cleansing'' of his own people from Gaza, despite his party's recent vote against this. It will be these abandoned homes, I imagine, that those Palestinians being displaced today in Rafah will be able to live in. There is sure to be upheaval affecting both Muslim and Jew while the handover takes place, and I sincerely hope it is kept to a minimum for all involved.

Jewish, Muslim and Christian Israelis work and live side by side in equality within Green Line Israel - the Middle East's only democracy. I do agree with Mr Clayton that when it comes to religion, extremism causes grief - whatever the religion. The port city of Haifa is a particularly fine example of this; indeed, a restaurant whose joint owners were Arab and Jewish was recently blown up by religious extremists, killing and injuring many innocent diners regardless of their ethnicity. Too often it is those who try to build bridges who are the victim of extremists. We are all guilty, every section of society, whatever race, religion or political persuasion, of having some extremists on our fringes. Isn't it time we stopped pointing fingers and laying blame at any one group, and tried to focus on our similarities, rather than our differences?

Gillian Rose,

22 Castleton Drive, Newton Mearns.