Roman
Catholic Church officials said an Israeli occupation sniper shot and killed a
mother and daughter Saturday inside a church compound in the northern part of
the Gaza Strip where many Palestinian Christian families have taken refuge.
اضافة اعلان
The
Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said that “one was killed as she tried to carry
the other to safety” in the compound of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City.
Seven more people were shot and wounded while trying to protect others there,
the patriarchate said in a statement Saturday.
“No
warning was given, no notification was provided,” the patriarchate said. “They
were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the parish.”
The
patriarchate said Israeli rockets were fired at a convent in the church
compound earlier Saturday, destroying the building’s sole generator and fuel
supply and heavily damaging the structure. Fifty-four disabled people had been
living in the convent, and some were left without the working respirators that
they needed to survive, the statement said.
The
Israeli military has denied knowledge of an attack at the Holy Family Parish.
Pope
Francis condemned the killings Sunday in his weekly address, saying that he
continued to receive “very serious and sad news about Gaza.”
“Unarmed
civilians are targets for bombs and gunfire,” the pope said. “And this has
happened even within the parish complex of the Holy Family, where there are no
terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick and have disabilities,
sisters.”
The
pope identified the two who were killed as Nahida Khalil Anton and her daughter
Samar Kamal Anton. He said they and the others who were shot had been on their
way to use a bathroom.
Layla
Moran, a member of Britain’s Parliament, said in an interview Sunday that
members of her extended family across three generations — a grandmother, her
son, his wife, and their 11-year-old twins — were among hundreds of Christian
Palestinians taking shelter at the Holy Family parish compound, which also
includes a school and a rectory.
The
compound has seen a “huge escalation” in gunfire since Tuesday, with no warning
from the Israeli military, Moran said. Families at the church have remained
trapped in schoolrooms with dwindling supplies of food and water, she said,
adding that she was afraid her relatives there might not survive until
Christmas.
The
dire humanitarian situation at the church and the killing of the two women
Saturday “makes a mockery of the suggestion” that the Israeli military tries to
keep civilians safe, she said.
Moran
said a sixth member of her family who was sheltering at the church, the
81-year-old grandfather of the twins, died after he became dehydrated and could
not be taken to a hospital, because nearly every healthcare facility in
northern Gaza had stopped functioning.
The
family sought refuge in the church during the first week of the war after their
home in Gaza City was bombed, she said.
“Nowhere
is safe in Gaza,” she said. “So they decided to stay in their church — with the
people they knew, with the priests — thinking that they would be safe in the
church. Who would attack a church?”
In
October, an Israeli airstrike hit a Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City. The
Gaza Health Ministry said at least 16 people were killed and many others were
buried underneath rubble.
The
Israeli military said the church, which like Holy Family was sheltering
displaced families, was “unequivocally” not the intended target of the strike,
and that fighter jets were aiming for a Hamas command center nearby.
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