An explosion at the St. Porphyrios Greek Orthodox Church campus in Gaza has left the administration building in ruins, and at least 17 people dead, though numbers have not yet been officially confirmed.
Several hundred people had been sheltering at the church complex, many of them sleeping, when the explosion went off on the night of 19th October.
On his Facebook page, Latin Patriarchate CEO Sami El-Yousef wrote on 20th October that, at the time of writing, 10 people had been reported dead and 20 missing, with many more injured. “Our prayers are with our people in Gaza,” he wrote. “Please God end this madness now!”
The Latin Patriarchate said on its Facebook page that it “declares solidarity and stands” with its sister Orthodox Church “in these difficult moments.” An AP report quoted Mohammed Abu Selmia, director general of Shifa Hospital, that dozens had been injured in the blast but a precise death toll was not yet available because bodies were still under the rubble.
In a statement on 19th October, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem expressed its “strongest condemnation” of what it said was an Israeli attack on the church property and emphasised that “targeting churches and their institutions, along with the shelters they provide to protect innocent citizens … constitutes a war crime.”
Picture: Women react outside St. Porphyrios Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza, 20th October 2023, after an explosion went off the night before. Several hundred people had been sheltering at the church complex, many of them sleeping, at the time of the explosion. The Hamas Ministry of Interior in Gaza blamed the explosion on an Israeli airstrike, but responsibility for it had not yet been independently verified. (OSV News photo/Mohammed Al-Masri, Reuters)