Christian patriarchs make a rare visit to Gaza after a deadly Israeli strike in the church

The leading church leaders visited Gaza on Friday, after their only Catholic church had been hit an Israeli shell the day before, in which three people were killed and wounded, including a priest who had built up a close friendship with the late Pope Francis.

The strike was convicted of both the current Pope and the US President Donald Trump and led to a declaration of regret from Israel, which stated that it was an error.

Since the end of a ceasefire in March, Israel has regularly started fatal strikes in Gaza stripes against the Hamas militants who often kill women and children. Strikes killed 18 people overnight, said health officers on Friday.

Meanwhile, Pope Leo XIV renewed his call for negotiations to end the 21-month war during a call on Friday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the Vatican.

Church leaders organize help, evacuations

The religious delegation to Gaza included two patriarchs from Jerusalem – the Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III. The rare visit should express the “joint pastoral provision of the churches in the Holy Land”, according to an explanation.

“We want to express our solidarity with our people, especially after the tragedy yesterday,” Pizzaballa told a freelance journalist from CBC News on Friday and added that the patriarchs appeal to the international community for an armistice.

Since the beginning of the war, Israel has had a strongly restricted access to Gaza stripes, although the leaders of the church have occurred on previous occasions, usually on large holidays.

The delegation attended the Catholic Church of the Holy Family, whose site was damaged in the fire. They also organized convoys that carried hundreds of tons of food, medical care and other devices into the territory – which experts were pushed by the famine by Israel's war and military offensive to the edge of famine – and the evacuation of those who were wounded in the church strike.

“This visit is a rejection of what has taken place and a rejection of everything that happens in this war,” 60-year-old Elias al-Jalda, a Christian activist in Gaza, told CBC News.

In a call with Netanyahu, Pope Leo “again expressed his concern about the dramatic humanitarian situation for the population in Gaza Strip, with children, the elderly and the sick who pay the most heartbreaking price,” said the Vatican in a explanation.

An Israeli civil servant who spoke anonymously because they were not justified to speak in the recording confirmed that Netanyahu had made the call and said that the Vatican's account was correct.

In an earlier statement, the Pope had repeated “his intentions to do everything to stop the useless slaughter of innocent people,” sentenced the unjustified attack to the church.

O'clock | Father Gabriel Romanelli talks about daily calls from Pope Francis:

Pope Francis called this Gazastkirche almost every day until his death

Almost every night since the beginning of the war in Gaza, the Holy Family Church in Gaza City received a call from Pope Francis, including only two days before his death. Father Gabriel Romanelli tells the Adrienne Arsenault of the citizen about the final call and the effects of the Pope's extraordinary reach.

The Vatican said that the Pope had also received an update about the condition of Rev. Gabriel Romanelli, the local priest of the church, which was slightly wounded. The priest had spoken regularly with Pope Francis, who died in April and who had told the Pope of the civilians' struggles in Gaza.

Netanyahu published an explanation on Thursday with the inscription Israel “deeply regretted that a stray ammunition hit Gaza's Holy Family Church”. The Israeli military said that it was still investigating.

“We can't get them out”

Israel has repeatedly beaten schools, accommodations, hospitals and other civil buildings and accused Hamas militant to protect themselves inside and to accuse them for civilian deaths. The Palestinians say that nowhere has felt that he started his offensive in response to the attack on October 7, 2023 from Hamas on October 7, 2023.

Israeli strikes killed overnight and on Friday at least 18 Palestinians, including a strike against a house in the southern city of Khan Younis, in which four members of the same family were killed. According to Mora recordings in the Nasser Hospital, which received the corpses.

The Associated Press film material of the consequences of the strike showed people looking for remains.

“They are still under the ruins,” said Belal Abu Sahloul, a relative of the killed. “So far we can't get them out, even in small pieces.”

In the hospital there was a mother to see her daughter's hand, who had been killed in one of the other strikes and placed in a body pocket. Almost 18,000 Palestinian children have been killed since the beginning of the war, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

The military of Israel said that it was “operated on to reduce the military skills of Hamas” and “Practical precautions to reduce civil damage”.

3 further killed help in the search for help: health officers

According to Nasser Hospital, another three people were killed when they were led to a help from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an American contractor supported by Israel. A spokesman for the foundation said that there is no violence at its locations overnight and that the crowds are “kind”.

Since the beginning of the operations of the group at the end of May, according to witnesses and health officers, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed on the way to the locations at the shootings of Israeli soldiers. The four locations of GHF are all in militarily controlled zones, and the Israeli military has explained that its troops have only fired warning shots to control the crowd. There was no military comment on the last deaths.

The Gaza Red was triggered when the militant Palestinian Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killed 1,200 people and, according to Israeli, took 251 hostages. There are still fifty hostages, with fewer than half being accepted until life.

According to the Gaza's Ministry of Health, the Israeli retaliation offensive has killed over 58,600 Palestinians, while almost the entire population displaced more than two million population and causes a hunger crisis.