“No warning was given, no notification was provided,” the patriarchate said. “They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the parish, where there are no belligerents.”
Vatican News on Saturday reported that the attack was allegedly “justified by Israelis” who “claimed the presence of a rocket launcher in the parish.”
Holy Family Parish is the only Roman Catholic church in Gaza. Since the Israel-Hamas war began, hundreds of Christians and other Gazan civilians have taken refuge in the parish, which is on the northern end of the Gaza Strip.
Prior to the shooting, the patriarchate said, “a rocket fired from an IDF tank targeted the Convent of the Sisters of Mother Teresa (Missionaries of Charity).”
“The convent is home to over 54 disabled persons and is part of the church compound, which was signaled as a place of worship since the beginning of the war,” the statement said. The building’s generator and its fuel resources were destroyed, the statement said, while the 54 disabled persons at the facility “are currently displaced and without access to the respirators that some of them need to survive.”