GAZA: Two women have been killed and many other civilians injured in an Israeli strike on Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in besieged Gaza, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Thursday.
Palestinian Interior Ministry reported several casualties, calling it a “new massacre” in Gaza. According to the ministry several displaced persons took shelter at the church building when Israeli warplanes hit it. The ministry said that the attack left a “large number of martyrs and wounded” at the building.
Israeli Targets Church in Gaza
Eyewitnesses said the airstrike destroyed the front of the church and caused an adjacent compound to collapse, saying that many injured people were evacuated to hospital.
Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church is the oldest building still in use in Gaza and is located in the city’s historic neighborhood. The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem also expressed its “strongest condemnation” of the Israeli airstrike at church.
In a statement, the Patriarchate said that targeting churches along with the shelters they give to protect innocent people, especially women and children who have lost their houses because Israeli bombing on residential areas over the last 13 days, constitutes a serious war crime that cannot be overlooked.
The Palestinian journalists’ union also said that 16 Palestinian journalists were killed in the war in Gaza since Israel began bombing the coastal enclave. The union said that dozens of other journalists were injured in the conflict in Gaza.
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13 people have been martyred and more than 15 wounded in an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia, Gaza, Palestine’s official news agency WAFA reported on Wednesday.
According to WAFA news agency Israel’s warplanes bombed a house of al-Hawajri family in Jabalia. It added that 13 people have been martyred while 15 injured in the brutal airstrike of Israel. As per media reports, children and women have also been wounded in the airstrike.
Earlier, the health ministry in the Gaza Strip confirmed that more than 500 innocent Palestinian civilians, including women and children, were martyred in a brutal Israeli airstrike on al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.
