Gaza Priest Gives News of His Parish

Gaza’s parish priest had to wait until the early morning on December 25 to receive news of his Holy Family parish, at the heart of the Gaza Strip. It was Fr. Youssef Asaad, his curate, who was able to inform him about a more and more worrying situation: 600 people--including Muslims, since there are only 150 Catholics and a mere thousand Christians in the enclave--in fact sheltered in the church in order to find safe refuge.

Due to the war, the midnight Mass had to be celebrated in the afternoon, with a procession limited to the grounds of the place of worship. A wink from Providence? Two hours of respite, without bombing, allowed them to go out to buy, at nearly six times its normal price, a few liters of gasoline needed to operate the church’s electric generator.

At the end of a ceremony that we imagine was particularly reverent, the children received a little glass of fruit juice: a luxury. There was news that reassured Fr. Gabriel Romanelli. The Gaza priest has been stuck in Israeli territory since October 7: the evening before, he had left the Palestinian enclave in order to find medicine. After the attacks, it was impossible for him to return to his parish.

Of Argentinian origin, Gabriel Romanelli arrived in the Holy Land in the 2000s: at the time, he was teaching the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas in Beit Hala, north of Bethlehem. It is from there that he goes once a month to the Gaza Strip. In the 2010s, the priest went to Syria and Iraq before presiding over the destiny of the parish of the Holy Family.

A parish that the bombings have not spared: several explosions damaged the Catholic site which includes three schools, the sisters’ housing, and a little garden. “The solar panels and our water tanks were destroyed. The stained glass windows of several buildings were also blown out by the bullet shells,” Fr. Romanelli explains.

Not to mention the women killed by a sniper, in the church courtyard, on December 16, and other victims of explosions or deaths of illness caused by the lack of drinking water. From the headquarters of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem where he was forced to take up residence, Fr. Romanelli activates his diplomatic channels alongside Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa in order to attempt to evacuate his faithful suffering difficulty.

The difficulties which make up the daily life of the Gaza priest: before the attacks of October 7, 2023, the priest exercised duties which went well beyond the religious sphere. “I had to be at the same time political adviser, magistrate, defender of the poor, and social worker,” he confides.

The urgent situation is now food and water: fortunately, well before October 7--and feeling that the situation could degenerate--Fr. Romanelli had managed to convince his superiors to buy stocks of supplies to accomodate potential refugees. He thought he was thinking far ahead in planning to feed 70 people for one week. It has now been three months since the war began.