Sick and Elderly Shelter in Gaza City Churches With Nowhere to Go Amid Looming IDF Siege ------------
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/2025-08-27/ty-article/.premium/sick-and-elderly-shelter-in-gaza-city-churches-with-nowhere-to-go-amid-looming-idf-siege/00000198-ea62-d91d-af9b-eb6b5d0d0000?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_content=author-alert&utm_campaign=Jack+Khoury&utm_term=20250827-11:55Sick and Elderly Shelter in Gaza City Churches With Nowhere to Go Amid Looming IDF Siege - Middle East News - Haaretz.com
Jack Khoury Aug 27, 2025
Churches in Gaza City will not evict Palestinian refugees sheltering there ahead of an expected Israeli military occupation, the Greek Orthodox and Latin patriarchates of Jerusalem said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
Hundreds of Gazans have taken shelter in the compounds of the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius and the Latin Church of the Holy Family since the outbreak of the war, with many of them recently becoming "weakened and malnourished," the statement said.
A displaced Palestinian man with amputated legs is pushed in a wheelchair, fleeing amid an Israeli military operation, in Gaza City, Tuesday.Credit: Ebrahim Hajjaj/Reuters
"Leaving Gaza City and trying to flee to the south would be nothing less than a death sentence," the statement read. "For this reason, the clergy and nuns have decided to remain and continue to care for all those who will be in the compounds."
"These are sick and elderly people – they have no other place to go," William Shomali, an auxiliary bishop for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, told Haaretz. Shomali said the refugees numbered about 600, most of them adult Christians. The Latin church also houses a small nursing home where about 30 people live and receive care from nuns.
A Greek Orthodox source in Gaza told Haaretz that the Israeli pressure since the start of the Gaza City operation was causing many families to explore the option of leaving the Strip.
"Right now, displacement within the Strip is tantamount to certain death, so we won't leave," the source said. "But if there's an option to leave altogether, we'll be forced to do it with the hope of someday returning. We were born here, and we love it in its entirety, but we've reached the point that we can't take it anymore. We're living on borrowed time."
Out of the approximately 600 people who had taken refuge in churches, about a third held visas allowing them to leave Gaza, he said. But "at this point, no one will allow them to leave."
Members of the Christian communities told Haaretz that conditions were growing worse day by day. "We're only being helped with the most basic things," said one. "There are often attacks just a few meters from the church compounds."
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The parish priest of Gaza's Holy Family Church, Father Gabriel Romanelli, filmed an army attack he said occurred about 700 meters from the church on Tuesday, which is located in the Zeitoun neighborhood.
IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir informed the security cabinet that the invasion would begin only after the establishment of a humanitarian zone for the city's residents. The patriarchates' statement noted otherwise: Entire neighborhoods had been given evacuation orders, aerial attacks were intensifying and more buildings were being levelled.
"It seems that the Israeli government's announcement that 'the gates of hell will open' is indeed taking on tragic forms," the patriarchates' statement read.
"It is time to end this spiral of violence, to put an end to war and to prioritize the common good of the people. There has been enough devastation in the territories and in people's lives … With equal urgency, we appeal to the international community to act for an end to this senseless and destructive war, and for the return of the missing people and the Israeli hostages."
Patriarchs from Jerusalem, Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III, left, and Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, right, lead a religious delegation to the Gaza Strip at the Holy Family Catholic Church in July.Credit: AP
It cited remarks by Pope Leo XIV from a few days earlier that "all peoples, even the smallest and weakest, must be respected by the powerful in their identity and rights, especially the right to live in their own lands; and no one can force them into exile."
The Latin and Orthodox church compounds in Gaza's Old City have come under frequent attack since the beginning of the war. In October 2023, 18 people were killed in an attack on the Orthodox compound. Two months later, two women were killed by sniper fire as they left the Holy Family Church, and in July 2025, three were killed in an IDF attack on the compound.
A delegation headed by Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III and Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa arrived shortly after the July incident for a solidarity visit with the city's Christian communities.
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