LAST UPDATE | 17 Dec 2023

POPE FRANCIS HAS deplored the deaths of two women in a Catholic parish in Gaza, where he said “defenceless civilians” were targeted by shootings and bombings.

A mother and daughter were shot dead by an Israeli soldier on the grounds of a Catholic church in Gaza City yesterday, according to the church-aligned Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

“I continue to receive very serious and painful news from Gaza,” he said at the end of the Angelus prayer. “A mother and her daughter… were killed and other people injured by sniper fire.”

“This happened even inside the parish of the Holy Family where there are no terrorists, but families, children, sick or disabled people,” the pope stressed.

Around 10am GMT yesterday, “a sniper of the IDF (Israeli army) murdered two Christian women inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza,” the patriarchate said in a statement.

Christian families have been sheltering on the church grounds since war between Israel and Hamas war broke out.

The killings come as public anger mounts in Israel over its army shooting dead three Israeli hostages who were possibly trying to escape to safety. A preliminary IDF investigation said the three young men were shot even as they carried a makeshift white flag and cried for help in Hebrew.

“Nahida and her daughter Samar were shot and killed as they walked to the Sister’s Convent. One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety,” it added.

Seven more people were wounded by gunfire as they tried to protect others, the statement said.

According to the Vatican press agency, citing Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, the victims were an elderly woman and her daughter.

Approached for comment, the Israeli army said it was looking into the incident, which took place on the grounds of the Gaza Strip’s only Catholic church.

The patriarchate said no warning was given before the shooting started, adding: “They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the Parish, where there are no belligerents.”

In its statement, the patriarchate said three projectiles fired by an Israeli tank had also struck a convent, destroying its generator and fuel supplies, and rendering a building housing 54 disabled people uninhabitable.

“The 54 disabled persons are currently displaced and without access to the respirators that some of them need to survive,” it added.

According to the Vatican press agency, the strikes wounded three people.

Italy’s top diplomat, Antonio Tajani, issued a “heartfelt appeal to the Israeli government and army to protect Christian places of worship”.

“That is not where the Hamas terrorists are hiding,” he said on X, formerly Twitter.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which killed around 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to official figures.

Israel’s campaign to crush the militant group has so far killed at least 18,800, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s Hamas government.

© Agence France-Presse