As the Catholic world grapples with outrage, mourning, and prayer in the aftermath of an Israeli shell striking Gaza’s only Catholic parish, many will likely want to know the names and faces of the wounded and the dead.
Bassem Khoury, a former Minister of the Economy of Palestine, spoke with CatholicVote by phone about the parish community.
“I know this community,” he said.
Khoury recently “managed to put together an effort from local NGOs and community members and also from the French government and individuals” to supply “around 50,000 hot meals” to Holy Family, “so they became like family to me during this war.”
Khoury is also chairman of Pharmacare, a pharmaceutical company that supplies the needs of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. He has worked closely with the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and during the ceasefire at the beginning of the current Trump administration, was able to take a headcount and get to know the faces of all the members of the Gaza church.
“There’s about 680 at the last count,” he said. “Of course, now we lost three.”
About a dozen were wounded Thursday morning when an Israeli military shell struck the church, and three were killed, including a man who had served as a parish guard and two elderly women.
“It was right after Mass … right after Holy Mass as they were coming out of church,” Khoury said. “And they were hit by the shrapnel and the debris.” He heard directly about two of the victims from a Pharmacare staffer who is currently sheltering in the church and was there at the time of the strike.
One of those struck by debris was 85-year-old Fumiah Ayad. “Fumiah died immediately, right on the spot,” Khoury reported. Another, Najwa Abu Dawoud, 71, was gravely wounded.
“Our staffer there — he’s at the church right now, taking refuge there because his house was demolished, he accompanied them to the hospital in Gaza,” Khoury said.
There, Khoury said, the medical team “told him, ‘We can do nothing for her because we can’t operate on her. We don’t have the facilities, we don’t have anesthesia, we don’t have the supplies.’”
Understaffing and lack of medical supplies are urgent problems in Gaza under Israel’s ongoing military campaign.
“Najwa bled to death” at the hospital, Khoury reported.
Through Khoury, an employee of Holy Family Catholic Church provided CatholicVote with a few photographs and details about those who died and suffered injuries during the strike, describing them as “three pious, simple, God fearing human beings murdered as they left church service.”
Saad Isa Qastandi Salama
Salama was 60 years old and “worked as a guard at the Latin / Catholic Church,” the Holy Family Parish source wrote. He was “a simple, respected, and decent person, a believer, and … unmarried. His entire family lives outside of Gaza.”
Fumiah Isa Latif Ayad
Ayad was 85 years old. “She was a teacher for generations and always had a smile on her face. She was a believer and prayed every day inside the church.”
Najwa Ibrahim Lateef Abu Dawoud
Aged 71, Dawoud “was a sociable person who always gave advice to all generations about the Church and prayer. Recently, she was thinking about how to access her treatment amid the difficult conditions of war. She suffered a lot in her life, particularly following the death of her young son Hani and the death of her husband. A year ago, she fell down and broke her pelvis, and she was receiving treatment. Recently, she was able to move and walk but with difficulty.”
In addition to the dead, many Catholics will also likely wish to pray for the wounded, including these:
Najeeb Maher Tarazi
A “handicapped man that was seriously injured in [the July 17] church attack. We are all praying for him.”
Suhail Shadi Abu Dawoud
“[S]eriously injured” in “the church shelling, we pray for his speedy recovery.” The source added: “Notice how thin he is, living 21 months of starvation and genocide.”
Asked about the community in Gaza he has come to love, Khoury pointed out that it “was once one of the most thriving Catholic communities in the Middle East. Many of them affluent — landowners, tradesmen, and craftsmen. Many of them also intellectuals — highly educated.”
The “first non-governmental high school in Gaza was a Christian high school,” Khoury added, and “the Church has played a major role in the education of the Christians.” Among Christians in general, he pointed out, “the first thing that we do is give high education to our children.”
“Unfortunately,” however, “with the successive wars and incursions and what have you, most of the youth have emigrated,” Khoury continued, “so the place is basically filled with more elderly people.”
July 17 was a “very tragic day for us,” Khoury said, but he praised the courage and conviction of the small community, and in particular Father Gabriel Romanelli, pastor at Holy Family Catholic Church.
“Father Gabriel is really an outstanding character,” Khourey said. “I think he was one of the main reasons behind the community staying together and being able to withstand the massive pressures.”