TWO people have been killed by an Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church, according to church officials.
Several other people, including the parish priest, were injured.
The Catholic charity Caritas Jerusalem said the parish’s 60-year-old caretaker and an 84-year-old woman receiving psycho-social support inside a Caritas tent in the church compound were killed in the attack.
The Israeli military said it is aware of the incident and is investigating.
Parish priest Fr Gabriel Romanelli, who was very close to the late Pope Francis and the two spoke almost every day, was also injured.
The church compound was sheltering both Christians and Muslims, including a number of children with disabilities, according to Fadel Naem, acting director of Al-Ahli Hospital, which received the dead and people injured.
The Israeli military said it “makes every feasible effort to mitigate harm to civilians and civilian structures, including religious sites, and regrets any damage caused to them”.
In a rare move, the Israeli Foreign Ministry posted an apology on social media.
“Israel expresses deep sorrow over the damage to the Holy Family Church in Gaza City and over any civilian casualty,” the ministry said.
Witnesses said the attack appeared to be an Israeli tank shelling.
Italian premier Giorgia Meloni blamed Israel for the church strike.
“The attacks on the civilian population that Israel has been demonstrating for months are unacceptable. No military action can justify such an attitude,” she said.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, told Vatican News that two of the injured persons are in serious condition.
“What we know for sure is that a tank, the IDF says by mistake, but we are not sure about this, they hit the Church directly, the Church of the Holy Family, the Latin Church”, he said.
He added: “There are four people seriously wounded, among these four, two are in very dramatic conditions and their lives are in serious danger.
“There are also other injured but less problematic, among them also the Parish Priest, because they were all in the Church.
“We don’t have complete information about what has happened in Gaza today because the communication in Gaza is not that simple."
In the last 18 months of his life, Francis would often call the lone Catholic church in the Gaza Strip to see how people huddled inside were coping with a devastating war.
Last year, he told CBS’s 60 Minutes that he calls a priest daily at 7pm at the Holy Family Church to hear what was happening to the nearly 600 people sheltering at the facility.
Only 1000 Christians live in Gaza, an overwhelmingly Muslim territory, according to the US State Department’s international religious freedom report for 2024.
The report says the majority of Palestinian Christians are Greek Orthodox but they also include other Christians, including Roman Catholics.
