Gaza City: Sniper fire kills two on parish grounds
According to a press release from the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, on December 16th, two women were killed by snipers on the church grounds of the Catholic Holy Family Parish in Gaza City. Seven other people were injured. On the same day, several projectiles hit the convent of the Missionaries of Charity, which is in the same compound and houses more than 50 people with disabilities.
According to ACN’s project partners, the two women killed were Samar Anton and her mother Nahida. Both were fatally injured when they tried to get to safety in a parish building. The Latin Patriarchate said that the snipers were Israeli military, which the Israel Defense Forces have denied.
No access to ventilators
Several rocket attacks destroyed, among other things, the convent’s power generator, causing a fire and rendering the building uninhabitable. The Mother Teresa Sisters and the 54 people with disabilities they help were able to get to safety, but “are currently displaced and without access to the respirators that some of them need to survive,” the patriarchate writes. The events are particularly disturbing in view of the coming Christmas.
Furthermore, local contacts told ACN that on Thursday, two workmen who were attempting to repair the water tanks of the parish building were also shot by snipers and died of their injuries. One contact wrote to ACN, “Please intensify your prayers for us. God alone knows how to help.”
Help for Christians in Israel and the Palestinian Territories
The Holy Family is the only Catholic parish in the Gaza Strip, and several hundred Christians are currently taking shelter on the church grounds, including children, senior citizens, and people with disabilities. Before the war, the Christian population of Gaza was estimated to be 1,000 people.
In cooperation with the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, ACN is supporting the Christian community in Gaza with the procurement of food and medicine. ACN is also aiding Christians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, who have also been affected by the war, as well as Christian migrant workers in Israel.
—Tobias Lehner
