In the Gaza Strip, besieged and bombarded daily by the Israeli army, Christian places of worship are not spared: Thursday October 19, an Orthodox church was hit by air raids.
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A bombing by the Israeli army on Thursday, October 19, left 17 dead, according to the parish, among the faithful who thought they had found a secure place in the church of Saint-Porphyry, in the old quarter of Gaza City. It is the oldest in the Palestinian territory, established there since the 5th century. She belongs to a parish of a thousand faithful, of which Kamel Ayyad is one of the spokespersons. “Most Christians in the Gaza Strip evacuated their homes and took refuge in their churches, hoping to be safe therehe says. They are mostly simple civilians, they have nothing to do with Hamas or Islamic Jihad. They’re just Christians.”
For this community, it is not really possible to evacuate the north of the Gaza Strip, as ordered by the Israelis: “Christians have nowhere to go in the south, they would be condemned to sleep in the streets”explains Kamel Ayyad.
“If we could leave the Gaza Strip, we would of course do so: towards the West Bank or towards Egypt. But it is impossible.”
Kamel Ayyad, spokesperson for the Saint-Porphyre parish in Gazaat franceinfo
Without electricity or drinking water, with food supplies running out, the faithful of the parish live in anguish, adds their spokesperson: “We are sheltering in our two churches, and we don’t know anything about what’s going on outside. Most of the people here are elderly people, women and children. Everyone is very worried about what could happen to us. arrive.”
A concern fueled mainly by the threat of fighting which looms with Israel’s military operation on the ground, and of which their city of Gaza should be one of the fiercest theaters.