The news of the shot of an Israeli tank against the roof of the parish of the Sagrada Familia ran like gunpowder through the streets of Jerusalem. As soon as he learned, the vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land, Fr. Ibrahim Faults called Vice-Párroco, Fr. Yusuf Asad, 49, to know what had happened.
“He informed me of what was happening and happened to me with Fr. Gabriel Romanelli, who was injured by the shrapnel in the leg, thank God, slightly,” he explains in conversation with ACI Press.
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The explosion killed three people – two elderly who received psychosocial support from Cáritas and the person in charge of maintenance of the parish – while ten other people were injured, some of them seriously.
One of them is the young suheil. The shrapnel entered his lungs and was operated urgently “without success.” Therefore, he has been evacuated to be treated outside Gaza: “The hospitals have all been attacked; the first was precisely a Christian hospital,” says Fr. Failures.
The few that follow operations do it at medium gas: “Lack of everything: medicines, health equipment, medical supplies, and many times even electricity, which is indispensable for surgeries, keep patients alive in intensive care or, for example, to operate incubators for premature babies.”
The three deceased were buried on the same day of the attack. “On Thursday, the masquias mass was celebrated. The situation is very difficult, and the extreme heat does not allow to wait for burials,” explains Fr. Failures.
Despite fear and sadness, the refugee community in the parish of Gaza does not replicate: “Everyone shares the pain and that unity also in mourning helps and accompanies. His decision is firm: they will not leave Gaza.”
“They want to stay and defend their identity as a people and as believers,” he remarks.
In any case, the feelings that emerge at this time are fear and sadness. “For almost two years, six hundred people share their sufferings and fears together. The three deceased people belonged to that great parochial family that continues to tour a difficult and important section of life,” explains the vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land.
Patriarchs of Jerusalem managed to get to Gaza
This Friday, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and his orthodox counterpart, Teófilo III, entered the Gaza Strip to “express the shared pastoral application” of the churches of the Holy Land after the “unfortunate attack” ‘Israeli of the previous day.
Fr. Faults summarizes his presence as a moment of “great comfort and support to the people of God, to the priests and the religious.”
In any case, remember that even if you do not speak every day of it, the war destroys everything daily: “Today we talk about the parish of Gaza because we know people and their situations directly, but we have never stopped denouncing the inhuman situation that the population of Gaza has lived for more than twenty -one months.”
And he continues: “In Gaza he dies of hunger, thirst, now heat, dies due to lack of medical attention, dies rowing to beg food. Children who just wanted to approach the water, very vital and essential for every human being.”
“They should not be military objectives”
The Israeli government has declared that the attack was a mistake, but it is not the first time that the Church of the Sagrada Familia suffers an aggression: “In December 2023 the Orthodox Church of San Porfirio was attacked, and later the solar energy system of the building of the sisters of the embodied verb was destroyed.”
On that occasion, two women, Nahida and Samar, mother and daughter, died from the shots of an Israeli sniper inside the enclosure. One was reached while trying to save the other, already injured.
“Attacks like this against the Latin parish should not have happened. They say it was a mistake, but the greatest error is war or, more precisely, these attacks directed against helpless people, such as the faithful of the Church of the Holy Family, the innocent victims of almost two years, and the dead, injured or traumatized children. These people should not be military objectives,” concludes the priest.
Victoria Cardiel
Victoria Cardiel is a journalist specialized in social and religious information issues. Since 2013, he has covered all the news of the Vatican for various media, such as the Spanish news agency Europa Press, or the weekly of the Archdiocese of Madrid, Alfa and Omega.