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Roman Catholic church officials said an Israeli military sniper shot dead a mother and daughter on Saturday in a church complex in northern Gaza, where many Palestinian Christian families have taken refuge.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said “one was killed while trying to get the other to safety” on the grounds of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City. Another seven people were shot and injured while trying to protect others there, the patriarchate said in a statement rack on Saturday.
“No warning was given, no notice was given,” the patriarchate said. “They were shot in cold blood in the parish buildings.”
The patriarchate said Israeli rockets were fired at a monastery on the church grounds earlier on Saturday, destroying the building’s only generator and fuel supply and severely damaging the structure. Fifty-four people with disabilities lived in the monastery, and some were left without the breathing equipment they need to survive, the statement said.
The Israeli army has denied knowledge of an attack on the Holy Family parish.
Pope Francis condemned the killings in his weekly address on Sundaysaying he continued to receive “very serious and sad news about Gaza.”
“Unarmed civilians are being targeted by 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 disabled, sisters.”
The pope identified the two who died as Nahida Khalil Anton and her daughter Samar Kamal Anton. He said she and the others who had been shot were on their way to a restroom.
Layla Moran, a member of the British Parliament, said in an interview on Sunday that members of her extended family spanning three generations – a grandmother, her son, his wife and their 11-year-old twins – were among the hundreds of Christian Palestinians seeking shelter. on the Holy Family parish grounds, which also includes a school and a parsonage.
The compound has seen a “massive escalation” of gunfire since Tuesday, without warning from the Israeli military, Ms. Moran said. Families at the church are still stuck in classrooms with dwindling food and water supplies, she said, adding that she worried her relatives there might not survive until Christmas.
The dire humanitarian situation at the church and the killing of the two women on Saturday “make a mockery of the suggestion” that the Israeli army is trying to protect civilians, she said.
Ms. Moran said a sixth member of her family who sheltered in the church, the twins’ 81-year-old grandfather, died after he became dehydrated and could not be taken to a hospital as almost every health care facility in northern Gaza ceased to function .
The family took 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 made the decision to stay in their church – with the people they knew, with the priests – thinking they would be safe in the church. Who would attack a church?”
An Israeli airstrike took place in October hit a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza City. The Health Ministry in Gaza said at least 16 people were killed and many others were buried under the rubble. The Israeli military said the church, which like the Holy Family housed displaced families, was “unequivocally” not the intended target of the attack, and that fighter jets targeted a Hamas command center nearby.
Nick Cumming-Bruce, Rachel Abrams and Jonathan Reiss contributed reporting.