Like images of people flee on foot along the rubble-strewn roads in Gaza appeared on November 8, Caroline Brennan, communications officer for Catholic Rescue Services, reports that “the situation in northern Gaza is deteriorating.” Ms. Brennan is in daily contact, as much as possible, with CRS personnel who remain at work inside Gaza as the war rages around them.
Members of the CRS team who remained in the north, many of whom have taken refuge in two churches near Gaza City, tell him that the past few days of Israeli army bombings have been the worst on record, with almost constant bombing and missile fire. Water and food supplies are completely depleted.
A sign of the desperation felt by families in Gaza was the recent rushed celebration of the baptism of nine children at St. Porphyrius Church.
“Now that northern Gaza is cut off from the south,” she said by email on November 8, “the humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating. People are desperate for food or water. The safe passage of humanitarian aid is urgent. We are talking about imminent life and death.
Aid workers recognize that a aid net passes through the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza, but they say the current level of assistance represents “a drop in the bucket” of actual daily needs. Speaking from Cairo on November 7, Ms. Brennan implored “a lifeline of humanitarian aid to arrive…. But ultimately, and most importantly, this violence must end.”
A sign of the desperation felt by families in Gaza was the recent rushed celebration of the baptism of nine children at St. Porphyrius Church. The pastor of the Greek Orthodox church quickly organized the service after two unbaptized children were killed in an IDF missile strike on the compound on October 20. This explosion killed 17 people, including Viola Al ‘Amash, an employee of Caritas Jerusalem, and her husband, Abdel Nour. Al Souri and their granddaughter, Alya. A colleague told Ms. Brennan that the sacramental celebration brought together the entire Greek Orthodox community who took refuge at St. Porphyrius, allowing these nine families a small moment of beauty and hope even as the need for baptisms demonstrated of their terrible circumstances.
IDF officers have for weeks urged Gazans to leave the north, which is fast becoming a battlefield as Israeli soldiers, tanks and mechanized vehicles search Hamas tunnels and strongpoints. The Israeli attack began in response to a devastating Hamas terrorist attack on southern Israel on October 7, which left more than 1,400 people dead and more than 240 people taken hostage. The UN reports that more than 1.5 million Gazans have now been displaced by the war.
According to Ms. Brennan, many CRS personnel were in fact evacuated to the south. “But there are some who can’t,” Ms. Brennan said. She explains that “many of our partners” stayed to help elderly and disabled people who could not leave.
Decisions in Gaza: “Do we all stay together in case something terrible happens, to the point where we die together, holding each other? Or do we separate parts of our families so that at least some of us can survive?
But as bad as conditions are in the north, they are hardly improving in the south, where IDF strikes continue. “There is no safe haven and there is no way out,” was Ms. Brennan’s assessment of the plight of the more than 2.3 million people living in Gaza.
Almost all CRS personnel and their collaborators in the community, “many of whom lost close family members,” were displaced by the fighting. Those unable to find refuge within the compound of the Holy Family and St. Porphyrius Church have fled to UN schools or other UN sites or found temporary shelter with members of their family in southern Gaza.
Ms. Brennan described the appalling living conditions of displaced families, whether they are housed in overcrowded compounds or in single-family homes or apartments that can accommodate many family members. A colleague said his entire extended family now lives in his home, more than 80 people. “They … have in each room up to 10 people sleeping on the floor, and they just have to deal with these very crowded, very unsanitary conditions,” she said. “No matter where you are, you’re in a place that (doesn’t have) the capacity to accommodate the number of people that are staying there.”
For Gaza residents, Ms. Brennan said, every day has become a brutal chore of listening to airstrikes and then spending hours searching for water and bread and food; hundreds of people queue to use the few remaining functional toilets.
“The conditions people live in are truly unbearable,” she said, especially in a culture that highly values modesty and privacy.
“They face increasing deprivation of food, water and medical care, despite abundant aid that is beyond their reach,” she added. Dozens of humanitarian aid trucks remain parked outside Egypt’s Rafah crossing, awaiting permission to enter Gaza.
Gaza residents “face increasing deprivation of food, water and medical care, despite abundant aid that is just beyond their reach.”
U.N. officials report that Israeli strikes on targets inside Gaza have killed more than 10,500 people, including more than 80 U.N. personnel. More than 25,000 people were injured. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, almost 70 percent of all deaths are women and children.
Ultimately, the true number of deaths will likely turn out to be much higher. More than 2,300 people, including 1,300 children, are missing so far, most of them likely trapped under the rubble of their homes. According to the United Nations, IDF strikes have demolished or damaged 45 percent of all housing units in Gaza.
Harout Bedrossian, head of Caritas Jerusalem, called for an immediate ceasefire in an email to America and “opening a humanitarian corridor from the West Bank so that we can access our medical center and provide Gaza with basic necessities that are either dwindling or already non-existent.” Caritas Jerusalem sponsors a number of medical facilities and other services in Gaza, where its staff are present. struggles to continue its humanitarian mission.
In Baltimore, Bill O’Keefe, executive vice president for mission, mobilization and advocacy at CRS, urged all parties to return to the path of peace. “Innocent civilians cannot wait another day for their safety and livelihood,” he said by email. “The already bleak outlook for people in the region will only get worse if this conflict metastasizes. »
CRS and Caritas Jerusalem staff share the vulnerability and suffering of other Gaza residents, according to Ms. Brennan, who face “constant uncertainty” and “incredible violence every day, with no way to protect themselves or their loved ones.” families”.
“There are no safe spaces,” she said. “A hospital, a church or a school are also affected by bombings and airstrikes. There’s really no place to escape… People are trapped in a nightmare with no escape, and conditions are only getting worse.
CRS and Caritas Jerusalem staff share the vulnerability and suffering of other Gaza residents, facing “constant uncertainty” and “incredible violence every day, with no way to protect themselves or their families.”
His colleagues told him that no one can say when the next airstrike will happen, “how far away it will be, and when they hear it, they have to ask themselves, ‘Does this affect the people they love?’ ‘ »
After frequent power and communications outages, colleagues describe having to struggle to charge their phones or connect to social media. “That’s when they realize how many friends they’ve lost.” It’s a real environment of despair.
In a CRS situation report, she shared the story of a colleague who told her: “My 7-year-old daughter wants to wear her costume every day because she says if she’s going to die, she wants to wear this dress. .”
Families, Ms. Brennan said, have been forced to make “unfathomable decisions” since the Israeli army launched its assault on Gaza: “Let’s all stick together in case something terrible happens, so that we would die together, holding each other? Or do we separate parts of our families so that at least some of us can survive?’
Speaking on behalf of the U.S. bishops in a statement released Oct. 27, Bishop David J. Malloy of Rockford, president of the bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, warned of the potential for regional escalation and international conflict. Calling for the release of hostages and the protection of civilian populations, Archbishop Malloy said: “The Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7 which sparked this war must be condemned. At the same time, we affirm continued efforts to enable humanitarian access, including corridors for those seeking safety, and urge Congress to provide support for relief efforts. As Pope Francis reminds the world“War is always a defeat; it is a destruction of human brotherhood.
The Group of Seven, the main industrial democracies, including the United States, meeting this week in Tokyo, announced on November 8 a unified position on the war between Israel and Hamas, condemning Hamas and supporting Israel’s right to self-defense, but also calling for the “unhindered” delivery of food, water, medicine and fuel as well as “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left open the possibility of such breaks to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid, but ruled out a broader ceasefire unless all Israeli hostages, including 10 American citizens, were released.
With reporting from the Associated Press
