Parish priest after attack on Gaza’s only Catholic church: “Everything happened in seconds”

The Church of the Holy Family, the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip, was hit last Thursday, July 17, in an attack that left its community mired in pain and uncertainty. A shell, according to initial reports, fired from an Israeli tank, killed three people and wounded 15 more, including the parish priest, Fr. Gabriel Romanelli, an Argentine missionary of the Institute of the Incarnate Word. 

“They have been and continue to be very hard days,” Fr. Gabriel begins in a video message on YouTube, recorded on Saturday, July 19, just two days after the attack. The voice of the Argentine priest conveys the seriousness of the drama that the small Christian community of Gaza, made up of just a few hundred faithful who now live sheltering inside the parish, is going through. 

A refuge turned into a scene of tragedy 

On the day of the tragedy, Fr. Gabriel had just finished morning prayers and a work meeting when he crossed paths on the stairs with Suhail, a young postulant to the Institute of the Incarnate Word. “We hadn’t even finished the greeting when a big explosion was heard. Screams, dust, debris… everything happened very quickly,” says the priest.

Read more: https://www.churchinneed.org/parish-priest-after-attack-on-gazas-only-catholic-church-everything-happened-in-seconds/