The Israel Defense Forces said in an emailed statement that a strike targeting a Hamas control center “damaged the wall of a church in the area” and that it is “aware of reports on casualties” and is reviewing the incident.
The Church of St. Porphyrius’s original structure dates to the 5th century, and the current structure was built in the 12th century. Located in a historic quarter of the city, it is named after a former bishop of Gaza, Saint Porphyrius, and placed where he is believed to have died in A.D. 420. Characterized by thick walls and a richly decorated interior, the church has long been a place of refuge and community for its members, who are a religious minority in the Gaza Strip.
Ibrahim Jahshan, a deacon at the church, told The Post that several hundred displaced Christians had taken refuge on the grounds. Rescuers were still digging through the rubble early Friday, but Jahshan said the strike killed nine people and wounded more than a dozen.
The Order of St. George, an associated order of the church, issued a statement confirming the strike. “Archbishop Alexios appears to have been located and is alive, but we don’t know if he is injured,” the Order of St. George stated. The blast hit “two church halls where the refugees, including children and babies, were sleeping.”
A Palestinian American woman who moved from Gaza to the United States in the early 2000s said in an interview that she had relatives and friends sheltering in the church at the time of the strike, some of whom were injured.
“They’re terrified. They’re shaken. They don’t know what to do, and they don’t know where else to go,” said the woman, whom The Post is not identifying because of concern for her family’s safety. She expressed outrage at the idea that more than a million civilians could evacuate from a place as densely populated and heavily bombed as Gaza City — a mass movement called for by Israel last week. “It’s impossible,” she said.
She said she grew up going to St. Porphyrius before moving to the United States, and her family has deep ties to the church, dating back to when they became refugees during the 1948 founding of Israel and mass displacement of Palestinians.
Describing the congregation as close-knit and family-like, she said she’s not just worried about her relatives. “I’m concerned for everyone because we’re a small community.”
Christians make up about 1 percent of Gaza’s population and have faced restrictions and discrimination by Hamas and Gaza’s Islamist government, according to human rights groups. During the 2014 Gaza war, about 1,000 Palestinian Muslims fled Israeli shelling for the Church of St. Porphyrius, where graves were damaged by shrapnel from a nearby strike, Reuters reported.
In a statement early Friday local time, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem said targeting churches sheltering innocent citizens “cannot be ignored.”
“The Patriarchate stresses that it will not abandon its religious and humanitarian duty, rooted in its Christian values, to provide all that is necessary in times of war and peace alike.”
Hill reported from New York. Ables reported from Seoul.
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