Holy Family parish school hit by Israeli military in Gaza

There are reports that the school next to the Catholic parish of the Holy Family in northern Gaza has been hit by the Israeli military. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem has <a href="https://www.lpj.org/en/news/press-release-from-lpj-the-latin-patriarchate-of-jerusalem-concerning"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">issued</mark></a> a statement following what appears either the targeting of two classrooms on the ground floor or a tragic error involving the likes of an air strike or artillery munitions: “The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem is monitoring, with grave concern, the news of the raids, apparently launched by the Israeli army against the Sacred Family School in Gaza this morning (7 July),” the statement says. “Footage and media reports from the place include scenes of civilian casualties and of destruction in the compound.” While the property of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Sacred Family School has, since the beginning of the war, been a place of refuge for hundreds of civilians, the statement notes. No religious personnel reside in the school.<br><br>Since the beginning of the war following the 7 October attack by Hamas, thousands of civilians in the Gaza Strip have sought shelter in hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure. The Israeli military has accused Hamas and other militants of infiltrating these facilities and using them as hideouts as well as their civilian occupants as human shields.<br><br>Reportedly among the casualties of the 7 July raid – which followed Israeli forces Saturday attacking the day before a UN-run school, killing at least 16 people, including UNRWA workers, and injuring 75 sheltered there, according to Gaza authorities – was Ihab al-Ghusain, Hamas’s Deputy Minister of Labour, <a href="https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-middle-east/2024/07/latin-patriarchate-condemns-school-raid-as-gaza-parish-adapts-to-war"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">reports</mark></a> <em>Crux</em>. “The Latin Patriarchate condemns in the strongest terms the targeting of civilians or any belligerent actions that fall short of ensuring that civilians remain outside the combat scene,” the statement said. “We continue to pray for the Lord’s mercy and hope that the parties will reach an agreement that would put an immediate end to the horrifying bloodbath and humanitarian catastrophe in the region.”<br><br>In December of 2023, as the Israeli offensive in Gaza escalated, the Catholic parish of the Holy Family was <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/schrapnel-damages-gazas-only-catholic-church/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">damaged by shrapnel</mark></a>.<br><br>Shortly after, two Christian women, a mother and daughter, were <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/senseless-attacks-in-gaza-christians-shot-and-killed-at-holy-family-church-and-missionaries-of-charity-targeted-by-tanks/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">shot dead inside the church compound</mark></a>.<br><br>Recently, <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/israeli-and-catholic-leaders-clash-over-whether-gaza-is-a-just-war/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Israeli and Catholic leaders clashed over Gaza</mark></a>, with the Israeli embassy to the Holy See criticising a statement from a commission representing Church leaders in the Holy Land denying that Israel’s offensive can be described as a “just war”.<br><br>The statement titled “Just War?” from the Justice and Peace Commission of the Holy Land, which is sponsored by the Assembly of the Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land, amounts to a stinging criticism of the Israeli military operation on the Gaza Strip. <br><br>“We are outraged that political actors in Israel and abroad are mobilising the theory of ‘just war’ in order to perpetuate and legitimate the ongoing war in Gaza,” the statement reads. “This theory is being used in a way in which it was never intended: to justify the death of tens of thousands, our friends and our neighbours.” <br><br>The Israeli embassy refuted the commission's criticism based on various factors, including arguing that the sense in which the commission uses the term “just war” – based on the concept of a “just war” in Catholic social teaching, originally rooted in concepts developed by St. Augustine and St. Thomas – is not consistent with international law, with which Israel seeks to comply. <em>Photo: A Palestinian woman comforts a girl as they stand in the grounds of the badly damaged Latin Patriarchate Sacred Family School after it was hit during Israeli military bombardment, Gaza City, Gaza, 7 July 2024. (Photo by OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP via Getty Images.)</em>