Nuns and priests to stay in Gaza despite evacuation orders

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem said last week there was ‘no direct order of evacuation, but the fighting is drawing ever closer to our area’ around the Holy Family parish.

The clergy and nuns in Gaza’s two churches will not leave them despite evacuation orders by the Israeli authorities ahead of an offensive to occupy Gaza City.

Jerusalem’s Latin and Greek Orthodox patriarchates reported on Tuesday that those serving in the respective parishes of the Holy Family and of St Porphyrius “have decided to remain and continue to care for all those who will be in the compounds”, particularly the sick and elderly for whom evacuation to the south of Gaza “would be nothing less than a death sentence”.

A joint statement from the patriarchates said the Israeli offensive was “not just a threat, but a reality that is already being implemented”, meaning that “the refugees living in the [church] facilities will have to decide according to their conscience what they will do”.

Both parishes have sheltered hundreds of civilians since the start of the war in October 2023, but have suffered military strikes. The statement followed reports last week that the Holy Family parish was subject to an evacuation order, which its parish priest Fr Gabriel Romanelli IVE denied while confirming there were continued strikes nearby and severe shortages in the compound. 

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa told Vatican News on 21 August there was “no direct order of evacuation, but the fighting is drawing ever closer to our area” near the Holy Family parish and adjacent districts had received evacuation orders.

The patriarchates’ statement on Tuesday said there could be “no future based on captivity, displacement of Palestinians or revenge”. 

“This is not the right way. There is no reason to justify the deliberate and forcible mass displacement of civilians,” it said. “It is time to end this spiral of violence, to put an end to war and to prioritise the common good of the people. There has been enough devastation, in the territories and in people’s lives.” 

It appealed “to the international community to act for an end of this senseless and destructive war, and for the return of the missing people and the Israeli hostages”.

The Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said he was “appalled by what is happening in Gaza, despite the condemnation of the whole world”.

Speaking in Rome after an airstrike killed 20 people in the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Monday, Parolin said he saw “no openings for a solution” as the war became “increasingly complicated and, from a humanitarian perspective, increasingly precarious”.

In his remarks to Vatican News last week, ahead of the day of prayer and fasting for peace called by Pope Leo on 22 August, Cardinal Pizzaballa said the initiative was not “a magic formula that solves problems” but a way “to keep our attention directed toward God”.

“It is the only thing we can go right now so that the hearts of men may change,” he said. “Prayers also serves to create this bond with people of all faiths who, despite everything, still want to believe that the heart of man, even in the Holy Land, can change.”

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