GAZA CITY, Palestine: The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said an Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church killed two people on Thursday, as Israel said it “never targets” religious sites and was investigating what happened.
“With deep sorrow the Latin Patriarchate can now confirm that two persons were killed as a result of an apparent strike by the Israeli army that hit the Holy Family Compound this morning,” the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said in a statement.
“We pray for the rest of their souls and for the end of this barbaric war. Nothing can justify the targeting of innocent civilians,” it added.
The spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency, Mahmud Bassal, told AFP that “two citizens from the Christian community were killed as a result of injuries sustained in an Israeli strike” on the church in Gaza City.
Israel said it expressed “deep sorrow over the damage to the Holy Family Church in Gaza City and over any civilian casualty,” adding that the military was investigating.
“Israel never targets churches or religious sites and regrets any harm to a religious site or to uninvolved civilians,” the foreign ministry said on X.
Out of the Gaza Strip’s population of more than two million, about 1,000 are Christians. Most of them are Orthodox but according to the Latin Patriarchate, there are about 135 Catholics in the territory.
The Palestinian group Hamas has slammed Israel’s attack on the church in Gaza City as “a new crime committed against places of worship and innocent displaced persons”.
“It comes within the context of the comprehensive war of extermination against the Palestinian people,” Hamas said in a statement shared on Telegram.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has issued a harsh – and rare – condemnation of Israel’s air raids on Palestinians in Gaza after Israeli forces bombed a Catholic church in Gaza City.
“Israeli raids on Gaza also hit the Church of the Holy Family,” Meloni said on X.
“The attacks against the civilian population that Israel has been carrying out for months are unacceptable. No military action can justify such an attitude.”
The deaths at the church compound came as Gaza’s civil defence agency reported at least 20 people dead in other Israeli strikes around the Palestinian territory.
