At least eight Palestinians, including women and children, were killed when the Israeli army fired a missile at the assembly hall of the Greek Orthodox church, where many Palestinians were sheltered, in Gaza City.
Media sources said the army fired a missile at Saint Porphyrius church in the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, killing eight Palestinians, including women and children, and wounding many others.
Many Palestinian families, both Muslim and Christian, sheltered in the church, looking for a safe place due to the ongoing Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip before the army bombed the church.
Video By Palestine TV
Father Mitri Raheb, the founder and president of Dar Al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, said in a social media post “The Greek Orthodox assembly hall in rubble. A massacre. Lord have mercy!
He added, “The number of Christians killed in the latest bombing of the assembly hall of the Orthodox Church is rising by the minute.”
Saint Porphirios church is the third oldest church in the world after its original building was constructed in the year 425 and was renovated in 1856.
The bombarded church is only meters away from the Al-Ahli Anglican Hospital that was bombed by Israel Tuesday, killing 500 civilians, including patients, staff, family members, and other civilians who had taken shelter at the hospital. A United Nations School that had become a makeshift shelter this past week was also hit.
After the hospital was bombed, many Zionist organizations, including the so-called Christian-Zionist organizations, started scrambling to come up with justifications for the heinous crime and even audio of fake “intercepted phone conversations between fighters” allegedly talking about “Palestinian shells accidentally striking it.”
However, the extent of damage and destruction and the resulting hundreds of casualties are clear indications that the missiles were guided and have a blast radius and explosive power that no armed Palestinian resistance group has.
An Al Jazeera digital investigation found no grounds for the Israeli army’s claim that the strike on the al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza was caused by a failed rocket launch. pic.twitter.com/DQsrBXfwmL
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 19, 2023
