The parish priest of the beleaguered Christian community in Gaza City has appealed for urgent prayers for peace, and confirmed that the parishioners of Holy Family – Gaza’s only Catholic parish – are not under evacuation orders from the Israeli military.

 

Fr. Gabriel Romanelli said that earlier reports that the Catholics had been ordered to leave the church – where they have been sheltering since the war began following the Hamas October 7, 2023 attacks – by the Israeli army are not correct.

 

“There has been no order of evacuation in this area of our neighborhood. Our area is in the Old City of Gaza, within the larger neighborhood of Zeytoun,” Fr. Romanelli told Vatican Media.

 

There are just over 450 Catholics left in Gaza, all of them sheltering in the church. A similar number of Green Orthodox Christians are sheltering at the nearby Church of St Porphyrius.

 

Fr. Romanelli said that “the area is dangerous. Bombings can be heard night and day. Some far away, others closer. At times, even shrapnel arrives [in the church compound]”.

 

“Unfortunately, the war continues. And, with the war, every day more dead, wounded, and destruction are added…and the needs of every kind for the entire civilian population of Gaza grow,” he warned.

 

Underlining the Christian hope that has sustained the community since the war began, Fr. Romanelli said: “We are well, thanks be to God We continue to pray for peace”.

 

A tank round struck the church on July 17, killing three people and injuring several others, including Fr Romanelli, whose leg was wounded. In the wake of that incident, Pope Leo XIV prayed for the victims by name, calling for an end to the “barbarism of war” and expressing his hopes for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

 

Meanwhile, ahead of a day of prayer and fasting for peace – which will be observed in Ireland on Sunday August 24 – the Pope spoke to the leader of the Church in the Holy Land to express his solidarity.

 

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, has expressed gratitude for Pope Leo XIV’s constant attention and hope that people’s hearts may change.

 

On Wednesday, the Pope invited the faithful around the world to implore the Lord to “grant peace and justice” to those who suffer because of armed conflicts, focusing especially on the Holy Land and Ukraine.

 

 

“We are grateful for this attention to the theme of peace, which the Pope has returned to very often, almost always,” Patriarch Pizzaballa told Vatican News.

 

“It is a very delicate theme, one felt very deeply by us. It is not the first time that we have committed ourselves to days of prayer and fasting; they have been done in the past as well, and it is the only thing that at this moment we can do: to pray and to fast, to keep our attention directed toward God. It is the only thing we can do right now so that the hearts of men may change,” he said.

 

Prayer, however, the cardinal warned, should not be relied upon as if it were “a magic formula that solves problems”.

 

Prayer serves to change hearts, he said, adding that approaching prayer in such a way would end up creating “only frustration”. Rather, he explained, prayer serves to open hearts in a context of hatred and rejection of the other, as has occurred with war and the absence of peace.

 

“Instead, the heart must always remain open to trust, to the desire to do good, to build good,” said Patriarch Pizzaballa. “And this is the strength of prayer, especially in the Holy Land, where recognising the other is almost impossible at this moment.”

 

Referring to Holy Family Parish, the cardinal said “the information we are receiving from the territory is confused. There has been no direct order of evacuation, but the fighting is drawing ever closer to our area, the areas adjacent to ours have been evacuated, so here we are, waiting to understand what to do.”