(LifeSiteNews) — The Latin and Greek Orthodox Patriarchates of Jerusalem have announced that clergy and religious will stay to care for the frail in Gaza parish compounds despite evacuation orders from Israel.
Father Gabriel Romanelli of Holy Family parish church previously told the Italian news outlet Ansa:
We received an evacuation order from the city and yesterday we were told that Israel would begin distributing tents. More than a million people have to leave the city to go south or center. The delivery of the tents is linked to the evacuation order.
While he later denied that there was an evacuation order for his area, the Latin Patriarchate and Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem issued a joint statement on Tuesday indicating that the Christian community in Gaza City will indeed be evacuated, as per Israel’s orders.
Earlier this month, Israel’s security cabinet greenlighted a plan for the Israeli military to take control of Gaza City, which will reportedly involve the evacuation of its entire population to shelters in the southern region.
The Christian patriarchates of Jerusalem noted that evacuation is already underway in several neighborhoods in Gaza, and reports of “heavy bombardment” in the area continue.
“It seems that the Israeli government’s announcement that ‘the gates of hell will open’ is indeed taking on tragic forms,” the patriarchates stated.
They pointed out that many civilians taking refuge within the Holy Family compound and the Greek Orthodox compound of Saint Porphyrius are “weakened and malnourished” due to Israel’s severe restrictions upon humanitarian aid into the region.
“Leaving Gaza City and trying to flee to the south would be nothing less than a death sentence” for these frail people, including the elderly, women and children, the statement continues. The Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity have also been caring for people with disabilities for many years in the Holy Family compound.
“For this reason, the clergy and nuns have decided to remain and continue to care for all those who will be in the compounds,” announced the patriarchates.
While leaving Gaza City could be a death sentence, so could remaining in the city.
Israel has been pummeling Gaza City with lethal strikes in recent days in an apparent effort to both kill off Palestinians and pressure those remaining to leave.
Demonstration of genocide
Already by late 2024, Amnesty International demonstrated and concluded that Israel is committing the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people.
Following the deadly October 7, 2023 Hamas break-out attack on areas just outside the Israeli border fence enclosing the occupied people of Gaza, the Israelis “have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse,” with reliable reports revealing the killing of at least 44,758 people, including 13,319 children, 7,216 women and not including an additional estimated 10,000 more civilians who remain under the rubble of bombed buildings (including an estimated 4,580 women and children).
Furthermore, Palestinian injuries number at least 106,134 in Gaza, including over 10,000 children who have lost at least one leg.
Amnesty found that many of these killed and injured were victims of Israel’s “direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families.”
These “relentless aerial and ground attacks” caused “unprecedented destruction, which experts say occurred at a level and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21st century, levelling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites. It thereby rendered large swathes of Gaza uninhabitable.”
Israel further imposed conditions upon the 2.3 million people of Gaza that “created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases,” exposing the Palestinian people “to a slow, calculated death.”
These conditions included a total siege on Gaza — cutting off food, water, electricity and fuel while persistently refusing to facilitate any meaningful humanitarian aid to their Palestinian victims, while also proactively obstructing the import of any such life-saving goods.
These actions combined with the mass displacement of the population and extensive damage to Gaza’s homes, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities as well as agricultural lands have compounded catastrophic levels of hunger and the rapid spread of disease.
