Two people were killed, and seven others injured on Thursday in an Israeli airstrike on the Church of Deir Al-Latin in Gaza \u2013 the enclave\u2019s only Catholic Church. <\/p>\n
Footage shows residents transporting the bodies of victims. Some could be heard saying: \u201cWe have God\u2019s help and support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the strike Pope Leo XIV called for an immediate ceasefire. Parish priest Gabriel Romanelli, who reportedly received daily phone calls from Pope Francis, Leo\u2019s predecessor, was among the injured and is seen in the footage.<\/p>\n
Mahmud Basal, spokesman for the local Civil Defence, confirmed that Saad Salama, 60 and Fumia Ayyad, 80, had been killed. <\/p>\n
\u201cThose are elderly people in their designated place. They were safe in their homes when they were targeted,\u201d added Eyhab Ayyad, a displaced person.<\/p>\n
The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine warned that targeting churches and religious institutions posed a direct threat to the Christian presence in the Holy Land.<\/p>\n
The Israeli army said it was \u201caware of reports of damage to the Holy Family Church in Gaza City and casualties\u201d, adding that it was currently investigating the incident.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two people were killed, and seven others injured on Thursday in an Israeli airstrike on the Church of Deir Al-Latin in Gaza \u2013 the enclave\u2019s only Catholic Church. Footage shows residents transporting the bodies of victims. Some could be heard saying: \u201cWe have God\u2019s help and support.\u201d Following the strike Pope Leo XIV called for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}