2023-12-16 23:03:28
The parish assures that no belligerent was within its walls. A mother and her daughter were killed Saturday by an Israeli soldier in the compound housing the only Catholic church in Gaza City, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said.
“Around midday today, an Israeli army sniper killed two Christian women in the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, where the majority of Gaza’s Christian families have taken refuge since the start of the war” between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas, indicates the Patriarchate in a press release. “Nahida and her daughter Samar were shot and killed while walking towards the Convent of the Sisters,” the statement added, without specifying the age of the victims.
Statement by the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem on the shooting and killing of two women in the Catholic church in Gaza. When will this end? Enough. pic.twitter.com/4JSht3SHE7
— Munther Isaac (@MuntherIsaac) December 16, 2023
Seven other people were injured by gunfire while trying to protect themselves from gunfire in the parish, according to the same source. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the reports. “They were shot in cold blood,” accused the Patriarchate, even though “no belligerent is within the walls of the parish.”
A community of around a hundred people
The Catholic community in the Gaza Strip, whose Palestinian inhabitants are overwhelmingly Muslim, has 135 members out of a thousand Christians, most of them Orthodox.
A war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7, triggered by a bloody attack perpetrated by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil from the Gaza Strip. According to Israel, 1,139 people, mostly civilians, were killed in this attack. In retaliation, Israel vowed to “annihilate” Hamas, shelling Palestinian territory and carrying out a vast ground operation. The Hamas Health Ministry reported Friday that 18,800 people had died in Israeli bombings, mostly civilians.
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