The Catholic priest in Gaza says the situation in the territory continues to be very serious and “is getting worse by the hour.”
Talk to AgenSIRAccording to the Italian Catholic News Agency, Father Gabriel Romanelli said Christians in Gaza “still have faith and hope in the essential: in Jesus Christ.”
Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza, attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 200 others hostage.
Israel has since launched a war on Gaza, where, according to the health minister, nearly 32,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Romanelli said the small number of Christians in Gaza have been “living an unrelenting ordeal for months.”
The Church of the Holy Family is the only Catholic parish in Gaza and its compound has housed around 600 displaced Christians since the start of the conflict.
“The other day my vicar, Father Youssef Asaad, who is in Gaza, told me: you cannot imagine the pain we feel and the despair of the people,” Romanelli said. AgenSIR.
“We are surrounded by the smell of death, we feel it, strongly, everywhere. We are buried under mountains of rubble, rubbish, the sewers have exploded,” said the priest.
“Despite everything, they pray every day for peace and offer their suffering and deprivation for the ceasefire and for the release of the hostages,” Romanelli said.
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The priest said humanitarian aid launched from the sky and sea by the United States and other international countries has not reached everyone.
“They did not arrive at the parish. However, some devotees managed to find flour and the bakery started producing bread again. This is a great blessing for our displaced people,” he said.
The United Nations Security Council was expected to vote Friday on a U.S.-sponsored resolution declaring “an immediate and lasting ceasefire” in the war between Israel and Hamas.
The most recent draft “determines” – which is an order of the council – “the imperative of an immediate and lasting ceasefire”, but has no direct link with the release of the hostages taken by Hamas after his October 7 attack on Israel, which was in the previous draft, but he supports diplomatic efforts “to achieve such a cease-fire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages.”
However, Israel says it is determined to launch a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town, which it says is a stronghold of the Islamist group.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel cannot achieve its goal of “total victory” unless it defeats Hamas’s four battalions in Rafah, currently home to 1.4 million Palestinians.
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Meanwhile, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem told TV2000 that Easter would be difficult in the Holy Land.
“It is objectively an intolerable situation,” said Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa.
“We have always had many problems of all kinds, even the economic and financial situation has always been very fragile, but famine has never been there. This is the first time we are facing famine. It’s intolerable,” he told the station.
“Everyone – religious, political and social communities – must do everything possible to end this situation,” the cardinal said.
“The weakness of the United States creates a great dilemma, because until now there has always been someone to fix things. Now all that no longer exists, we have to do it from now on. I don’t know if, how and when it can be done,” Pizzaballa said.
