"The Holy Family Church in Gaza has been struck by a raid this morning. There are several injuries in the place including the Parish Priest, Fr. Gabriel Romanelli. Currently, there are no fatalities confirmed," the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said in a statement.
Later, Gaza's civil defence agency said an Israeli strike on a Gaza City church killed two people.
"Two citizens from the Christian community were killed as a result of injuries sustained in an Israeli strike on the Church of the Latin Monastery in the Old City, east of Gaza City, this morning," civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
The Latin Patriarchate also confirmed that the two were dead.
Moreover, the church — the only Catholic church in Gaza — was damaged in the attack, officials said.
"The church has been sheltering both Christians and Muslims, including some children with disabilities," Fadel Naem, the acting director of Al-Ahli Hospital, which received the wounded, told AP.
At least two people were in critical condition, and others injured included one child with disabilities, two women, and an elderly person, Naem added.
Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, the Israeli occupation has carried out some of the most brutal bombing campaigns targeting civilians. This has destroyed critical infrastructure, including places of worship such as historic mosques and churches that form an integral part of Palestine’s cultural and religious heritage.
According to figures published by Gaza’s Government Media Office in April, Israeli airstrikes have destroyed more than 1,000 mosques and three churches, in what many observers see as a deliberate assault on worship places.
Among the targeted churches was the Baptist Church in Gaza, whose name became synonymous with one of the Gaza War’s most horrifying massacres. On 17 October 2023, an Israeli missile hit the courtyard of the Baptist Hospital, which is part of the church complex. The attack killed 600 Palestinians, including patients and displaced families sheltering at the hospital.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni blamed Israel for Thursday's strike on Gaza's Catholic church.
“The attacks on the civilian population that Israel has been demonstrating for months are unacceptable. No military action can justify such an attitude,” she said.
The church is just a stone’s throw from Al-Ahli Hospital, Naem said, noting that the area around both the church and the hospital has been repeatedly struck for over a week.
On Thursday, at least two people were killed in strikes on Gaza, including one in Gaza City and one in central Gaza's Bureij refugee camp, according to local hospitals.
Parish priest Fr. Romanelli was very close to the late Pope Francis, and the two spoke often during the Israeli war on Gaza, AP reported.
In the last 18 months of his life, Francis often called the lone Catholic church in the Gaza Strip to see how people huddled inside were coping with a devastating war.
In 2024, he told CBS’s 60 Minutes that he calls a priest daily at 7pm at the Holy Family Church to hear what was happening to the nearly 600 people sheltering at the facility.
Threat to the historic Christian presence
The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine has condemned the Israeli military strike on the Holy Family Church, affiliated with the Latin Patriarchate, in Gaza City, WAFA news agency reported.
In a statement on Thursday, the committee expressed deep concern over the attack, which resulted in several injuries — including the church’s priest — and extensive damage to the church building.
The committee stressed that targeting churches and religious institutions under any pretext is unacceptable and constitutes a direct threat to the historic Christian presence in the Holy Land.
It called on the international community and human rights organizations to urgently intervene to protect places of worship in Gaza and halt attacks on both civilians and religious sites.
Since the beginning of its genocidal war on Gaza, Israel has killed over 58,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, with women and children making up more than half of the dead.
Short link: