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Gaza's only Catholic church damaged by Israeli shell<\/big><\/p>\n
Yesterday, the Holy Family Church in Gaza, the only Catholic church in the territory, was damaged in an Israeli attack<\/a>. In the evening, Roni Kaplan, spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), noted<\/a>: \"An initial investigation into reports of injuries at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City suggests that fragments of a projectile fired during an operation in the area mistakenly hit the Church<\/strong>. The cause of the incident is under investigation.\"<\/em><\/p>\n Some media outlets and social media users were quick to claim that Israel \"bombed\" the church and even destroyed it. In reality, the church itself is still standing, with some damage to its facade<\/a>. Certainly, the IDF must be required to exercise extreme caution when operating in areas with civilians present<\/strong>, although I personally rule out any intention by Israel to attack a Catholic church. It should also be remembered that Hamas continues to use residential areas to carry out military operations, using civilians as human shields<\/strong>, which is a war crime. A crime that many systematically ignore when discussing this war.<\/p>\n There's one thing that particularly caught my attention about this incident. Some religious media outlets have given extensive attention to what happened in Gaza<\/strong>, which I think is very good, although I would appreciate it if they were consistent and also covered the attacks on churches elsewhere.<\/p>\n Russian attacks on nearly 600 Christian churches in Ukraine<\/big><\/p>\n In March, I noted here that Russia has attacked almost 600 Christian churches in Ukraine<\/a> (in total, the invaders have attacked 642 religious buildings, 53 of which were completely destroyed). Most of the attacked churches were Orthodox, but there were also 24 attacks on Catholic buildings.<\/strong> Details of these attacks can be found in a report (see PDF)<\/a> published by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture in February and on the website Religion on Fire<\/a>.<\/p>\n On that website, you can see images of Catholic churches attacked by Russians. The most serious of the attacks was the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Kyselivka<\/a>, in Mykolayiv Oblast, a church of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine. The cathedral was attacked with cannon fire by a Russian tank, which fired on its tower to knock down the cross<\/strong>, managing to bring it down with the fifth shot, in March 2022. Finally, that cathedral was destroyed by the Russians with artillery fire and cluster bombs<\/strong> on May 2, 2022. Here you can see the result of those attacks:<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/staging-jubilee.flickr.com\/65535\/54661909381_69da212db2_o.jpg\")
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