Analysis
Israel is obliterating places of worship, including the only Catholic church in Gaza
The three Catholic dead are added to a staggering daily toll: on Thursday alone, the Israeli army killed 94 Palestinians in Gaza, twenty-six of them while they tried to reach food aid; 367 were wounded.
No one at Gaza City’s Holy Family Church expected such an attack as the one that took place on Thursday. True, the building had not been spared during 21 months of daily air and ground raids on the Strip. On December 16, 2023, Israeli snipers entered the compound and killed mother and daughter Nahida and Samar Anton – murders the Latin Patriarchate decried as killings “in cold blood.” Seven months later, on July 7, 2024, a raid hit the parish school, leaving four dead; follow-up strikes wrecked generators, water tanks, solar panels and several rooms.
Still, Thursday morning’s shelling could have become a massacre. Roughly 500 people – Palestinian Catholics and Orthodox alike – were sheltering on the grounds. Around 9 a.m. an Israeli round smashed through the church roof; slabs crashed into the courtyard where dozens had gathered, flattening the Caritas tent used for psychosocial support.
Two elderly women who were inside the tent died on the spot: Foumia Issa Latif Ayyad, 84, and Najwa Abu Dawud, who died from her injuries hours later. Saad Issa Kostandi Salameh, 60, the parish gatekeeper, was also killed; at least six other people were seriously injured.
Holy Family is Gaza’s lone Catholic church. Pope Francis has kept daily contact with the faithful and with pastor Fr. Gabriele Romanelli, who was not in Gaza on October 7, 2023 but who was later able to re-enter the Strip. Romanelli himself received a light injury from shrapnel in his leg and was treated at al-Ahli hospital. A widely shared video shows the Pope video-calling the parish, as he did almost daily up to a few days before his death – one of roughly 500 calls in eighteen months, the priest says.
According to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, two of Thursday’s wounded are in critical condition and two in serious condition. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa stated in an audio clip released by Vatican News that “what we know for sure is that it was a tank” that hit the church; he added the army claimed the shot was a mistake. Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued an unusually emotional note expressing “deep sorrow for the damage …” and insisting “Israel never targets churches or religious sites.”
The truth is quite different: Tel Aviv’s forces have spared neither mosques nor parishes. On October 19, 2023 a missile struck Gaza’s Greek-Orthodox church of St Porphyrius, then hosting hundreds of displaced civilians, killing 18 – including very young children. The Byzantine church in Jabaliya, reopened only in 2022 after three years’ restoration, now lies almost razed.
Gaza officials say about 79 percent of the Strip’s mosques have been destroyed. Only on Thursday – after pressure from U.S. Catholics – did President Donald Trump call Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ask for explanations about the attack.
The three Catholic dead are added to a staggering daily toll: on Thursday alone, the Israeli army killed 94 Palestinians in Gaza, twenty-six of them while they tried to reach food aid; 367 were wounded.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported one staffer injured when Israeli jets bombed a tent camp in Khan Younis; in one month MSF has had two workers wounded and one killed.
The Israeli air force hit the al-Mawasi “safe zone” just minutes after ordering evacuees from Jabaliya to head there, killing a child and wounding several others. Evacuation orders are coming nonstop, while camps in southern Gaza are overflowing and without adequate services. In the north a drone fired on people doing nothing more than walking on the street, killing at least four, including children.
In the West Bank, Israeli soldiers killed Firas Ahmad Raja Soboh, 47, in the Tubas district: troops slipped into Wadi Al-Far’a, surrounded his house, opened fire on him and arrested him despite his wounds. The Israeli army confirmed his death to the Palestinian Health Ministry but is still withholding the body.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/colpita-la-chiesa-cattolica-della-striscia-tre-morti on 2025-07-18