A parish priest and several injured as airstrikes hit Gaza's only Catholic church
Parish priest Fr. Gabriel Romanelli was very close with the late Pope Francis and the two spoke often during the war in Gaza.
The church — the only Catholic church in Gaza — was damaged in the attack, officials said, in what witnesses said appeared to be an Israeli tank shelling.
The Israeli military did not have immediate comment on the strike.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni blamed Israel for the church strike. 'The attacks on the civilian population that Israel has been demonstrating for months are unacceptable. No military action can justify such an attitude,' she said.
In the last 18 months of his life, Francis would often call the lone Catholic church in the Gaza Strip to see how people huddled inside were coping with a devastating war.
Last year, he told CBS' '60 Minutes' that he calls a priest daily at 7 p.m. at the Holy Family Church to hear what was happening to the nearly 600 people sheltering at the facility.
Only 1,000 Christians live in Gaza, an overwhelmingly Muslim territory, according to the U.S. State Department's international religious freedom report for 2024. The report says the majority of Palestinian Christians are Greek Orthodox but they also include other Christians, including Roman Catholics.
The war began with Hamas' cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023. That day, militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people, most of whom have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Fifty hostages are still being held, less than half of them believed to be alive.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 58,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which has said women and children make up more than half of the dead. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its tally.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government but is led by medical professionals. The United Nations and other international organizations consider its figures to be the most reliable count of war casualties.
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The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee examined whether there was any political interference in the Obama administration's conclusions and reported that 'all analysts expressed that they were free to debate, object to content, and assess confidence levels, as is normal and proper.' In 2018, Putin directly addressed the question of whether he preferred Trump at a press conference in Helsinki even as he sidestepped a question about whether he directed any of his subordinates to help Trump. 'Yes, I did,' Putin said. 'Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal.' Steele dossier CLAIM: 'They used already discredited information like the Steele dossier — they knew it was discredited at the time.' — Gabbard to Fox News on Tuesday. The dossier refers to a collection of opposition research files compiled by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, whose work was funded by Democrats during the 2016 election. Those files included uncorroborated tips and salacious gossip about Trump's ties to Russia, but the importance to the Russia investigation has sometimes been overstated. It was not the basis for the FBI's decision to open an investigation in July 2016 into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, the Justice Department's inspector general found. Some of the records released by Gabbard this week also reveal that it was a Central Intelligence Agency human source close to the Kremlin that the agency primarily relied on for its conclusion that Putin wanted to help Trump and hurt Clinton, not the Steele dossier. FBI agents on the case didn't even come to possess the dossier until weeks into their inquiry. Even so, Trump supporters have seized on the unverified innuendo in the document to undercut the broader Russia investigation. Many of Steele's claims have since been discredited or denied. It is true, however, that the FBI and Justice Department relied in part on the Steele dossier to obtain surveillance warrants to eavesdrop on the communications of a former Trump campaign adviser, the inspector general found. FBI agents continued to pursue those warrants even after questions arose about the credibility of Steele's reporting. The dossier was also summarized — over the objections of then-CIA Director John Brennan, he has said — in a two-page annex to the classified version of the intelligence community assessment. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
