An Israeli air attack has killed and injured a “large number” of displaced people sheltering at a Orthodox Christian church, the world’s third oldest church, in Gaza, according to the besieged Palestinian enclave’s interior ministry.
Israel has pounded Gaza with air strikes and put the enclave’s 2.3 million people under a total siege, banning shipments even of food, fuel and medical supplies. Since Oct. 7, 3,785 Palestinians have been killed including more than 1,500 children, Palestinian officials say. The U.N. says more than a million have been made homeless.
Israel just bombed the 3rd oldest church in the world murdering a few more scores of Palestinians. For those of you still in denial of a genocide, we have community members with 30-40 relatives wiped out in Gaza. It’s not just Muslims, it’s everything and everyone Palestinian. pic.twitter.com/W0YEAekY7P
— Dr. Omar Suleiman (@omarsuleiman504) October 19, 2023
The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the main Palestinian Christian denomination, said Israeli forces had struck the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, where hundreds of Christians and Muslims had sought sanctuary.
Also read: ‘Am I still alive?’: A Gazan child asks medic after Israeli airstrike wipes out his family
Video from the scene showed a wounded boy being carried from rubble at night. A civil defence worker said two people on upper floors had survived; those on lower floors had been killed and their bodies were still in the rubble.
BREAKING: The first videos emerge of survivors from the Israeli bombing of the Christian Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza telling their story. pic.twitter.com/MMBLvjM3AR
— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) October 19, 2023
“They felt they would be safe here. They came from under the bombardment and the destruction, and they said they would be safe here but destruction chased them,” a man cried out.
Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office said 18 Christian Palestinians had been killed. There was no immediate word from the church on the final death toll. It said targeting churches that were used as shelters for people fleeing bombing was “a war crime that cannot be ignored.”
???????? Survivors of Israel’s BOMBING that damaged the refugee complex of Gaza’s OLDEST CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
☦️ If they’ll bomb a church, they definitely bombed the hospital.
pic.twitter.com/0wvPKwYF4k— Jackson Hinkle ???????? (@jacksonhinklle) October 19, 2023
In Zahra, a northern Gaza town, residents said their entire district of some 25 multi-storey apartment buildings was razed to the ground.
“Everything I ever dreamt of and thought that I have achieved was gone. In that apartment was my dream, my memories with my children, and my wife, was the smell of safety and love,” Ali, a resident of the district, was quoted as saying by, declining to give his full name for fear of reprisals.
the saint porphyruis is a greek orthodox christian church in gaza city, it housed many displaced palestinians after the bombing of neighborhoods in the gaza strip and the bombing of hospitals and ambulances. this home to so many palestinians is gone and they have no where to go. https://t.co/oOtl9KvK8G pic.twitter.com/UOB78FD5Oi
— DIDU (@muglare) October 20, 2023
The United Nations humanitarian affairs office said more than 140,000 homes – nearly a third of all homes in Gaza – have been damaged, with nearly 13,000 completely destroyed.
The south of the enclave has also been regularly hit. Gaza authorities said there were several dead and wounded in fresh strikes on Khan Younis, the enclave’s main southern city.
