Saturday, July 19, 2025 - Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has issued an apology after a tank fire from Israel hit the compound of Gaza's only Catholic church, k!lling three people.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which has jurisdiction
for Roman Catholics in Gaza, said the Holy Family Church was struck by Israel
on Thursday morning. The church has become a shelter for the enclave’s tiny
Christian community amid the 20-month war.
The office of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
said that “Israel deeply regrets that a stray ammunition hit Gaza’s Holy Family
Church. Every innocent life lost is a tragedy.”
“Israel is investigating the incident and remains committed
to protecting civilians and holy sites,” the office added in a statement.
Pope Leo received a phone call from Netanyahu on Friday,
following the strike, the Vatican said, in which the patriarch expressed the
importance of protecting places of worship.
During the phone call, which Netanyahu’s office is yet to
comment on, Leo renewed his calls for a ceasefire to be reached by the warring
sides in Gaza, a statement said.
Pope Leo “again expressed his concern for the dramatic
humanitarian situation of the population in Gaza, whose heartbreaking price is
paid especially by children, the elderly and the sick,” according to the
statement.
Netanyahu told US President Donald Trump in a phone call
that the church incident was a “mistake,” White House press secretary Karoline
Leavitt told a briefing Thursday. Asked about Trump’s view on the strike,
Leavitt described it as “not a positive reaction.”
The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged it hit the church
“mistakenly.”
“An initial inquiry into reports regarding injured
individuals in the Holy Family Church in Gaza City suggests that fragments from
a shell fired during operational activity in the area hit the church
mistakenly,” the IDF said in a statement on Thursday.
“The cause of the incident is under review.”
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