{"id":14749,"date":"2024-04-01T00:58:53","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T00:58:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/01\/displaced-palestinian-christians-mark-easter-in-gazas-only-catholic-church\/"},"modified":"2024-04-01T00:58:53","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T00:58:53","slug":"displaced-palestinian-christians-mark-easter-in-gazas-only-catholic-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/01\/displaced-palestinian-christians-mark-easter-in-gazas-only-catholic-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Displaced Palestinian Christians Mark Easter in Gaza\u2019s Only Catholic Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/08\/multimedia\/08MIdeast-Easter-zphb\/08MIdeast-Easter-zphb-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Displaced Palestinian Christians Mark Easter in Gaza\u2019s Only Catholic Church\" title=\"Displaced Palestinian Christians Mark Easter in Gaza\u2019s Only Catholic Church\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip held somber Easter celebrations on Sunday for hundreds of displaced Palestinian Christians who have been sheltering within its compound since the war began nearly six months ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Holy Family Church is in Gaza City, in the northern part of the strip, an area that has suffered some of the heaviest Israeli bombardment since October and where the global authority on food security says a full-scale famine is imminent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The families who have taken refuge at the church have been \u201cscraping to get by\u201d for months with limited food and \u201calmost nonexistent\u201d medical supplies \u2014 the same as all Palestinians in northern Gaza, including Muslims celebrating the holy month of Ramadan, said Father Davide Meli, the chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. \u201cIt\u2019s a high holiday for all of us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The priest of the Holy Family parish, Father Gabriel Romanelli, was in Bethlehem when the war began on Oct. 7, and Israeli authorities have repeatedly denied him permission to return to Gaza, according to Father Meli.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">More than 500 people are sheltering at the Holy Family Church and approximately 300 others are at the historic Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church nearby, Father Meli said. Together, he added, they make up the vast majority of Gaza\u2019s tiny and tight-knit Christian population.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Both churches have been attacked during the war. An Israeli airstrike <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/10\/20\/world\/middleeast\/israel-airstrike-gaza-city.html\" title=\"\">killed 18 people at the Saint Porphyrius church<\/a> in October, according to the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which condemned the attack as a war crime. The Israeli military later said it was targeting a nearby building.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At the Holy Family Church in December, Israeli snipers <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2023\/12\/17\/world\/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news\/catholic-church-gaza-two-dead?smid=url-share\" title=\"\">killed a mother and daughter<\/a> inside the church compound and injured seven others who rushed to help them, according to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Church officials said Israeli rockets also hit a convent within the compound earlier that day, destroying the building\u2019s sole generator and leaving some of the dozens of disabled people living there without working respirators that they needed to survive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Israeli military denied knowledge of the incident, which Pope Francis condemned as an attack on a church \u201cwhere there are no terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick and have disabilities, sisters.\u201d He called for an immediate cease-fire in his <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/31\/world\/europe\/pope-francis-easter-speech.html\" title=\"\">Easter address<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip held somber Easter celebrations on Sunday for hundreds of displaced Palestinian Christians who have been sheltering within its compound since the war began nearly six months ago. The Holy Family Church is in Gaza City, in the northern part of the strip, an area that has suffered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/08\/multimedia\/08MIdeast-Easter-zphb\/08MIdeast-Easter-zphb-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20437,19604,6149,20436,9170,11468,73,19637],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14749"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14751,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14749\/revisions\/14751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}