(Catholic News Service) Since early May 11, Israeli bombs have been falling around the Rosary Sisters school in Gaza, which sustained light to moderate damage inside and outside the compound — including to the front door and solar panels used for electricity.
“It is very terrible; from 5 a.m. in the morning (there has been bombing) behind our school and in our school,” Sister Nabila Saleh, principal of the school, told Catholic News Service in a WhatsApp call May 12. Bombs could be heard exploding in the background and, audibly distraught, Sister Saleh was unable to continue with the interview.
Because of COVID-19 and Ramadan, the school has been closed since mid-April, and only in early May was the COVID-19 lockdown lifted in Gaza.
Father Gabriel Romanelli of Holy Family Parish in Gaza told CNS May 12 that, in two days, 45 people, including 14 children and three women, had been killed in Gaza. Three hundred people have been wounded, he said.
The tiny Catholic community in Gaza consists of 133 people — including a baby born in early May. Fewer than 1,100 Christians live in Gaza among the 2 million Muslim Palestinians. Many of the students at the Rosary Sisters school are Muslim.
Father Romanelli said the priests and religious have been staying in close contact with their parishioners through phone calls, the internet and WhatsApp. Unfortunately, he said, they “are very used to war.”
Tej Francis
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