HOLY LAND (ACN News): The situation in Gaza is “unbearable” – amid ongoing aerial bombard-ments – according to Church sources there.
Speaking to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, parish priest of Gaza’s Holy Family Church Fr George Hernández said: “The need of the people and the humiliations that they must endure daily are unbearable.”
Fr Hernández told ACN staff visiting Gaza as part of a project assessment trip that people there had been “repeatedly subjected to low-level flyovers and even bombardments by the Israeli Air Force”.
The most recent came on September 7 when aircraft fired on militants stationed east of Jabalia, in southern Gaza.
Israeli aerial attacks began after the Popular Resistance Committee in Gaza attacked a bus carrying Israeli soldiers on August 18, killing 14 people.
Reports from the region state that the following week there were 41 air strikes, killing 17 Palestinians – 12 were members of radical Islamist groups – and wounding 20, including six children.
Sister Davida, whose order, the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary, runs a school for 630 pupils in Gaza, told Aid to the Church in Need children were still reeling from the 2008-09 Gaza War.
“During the war, several girls died of heart failure,” she said.
“Even today, many children react to aircraft noise with fear and panic.”
Fr Hernández said it had become increasingly difficult to find work in the area and about 80 per cent of Gaza’s 1.5 million people – of whom about 3000 are Christians – have no regular income.
Restrictions on travel in and out of the area, imposed by Israel in June 2007 following Hamas’ seizure of the Gaza Strip, were blamed for the high levels of unemployment affecting Christians, who find it difficult to leave the region.
In March 2011 the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Hum-anitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) concluded that Israel’s “easing of the blockade on the Gaza Strip since June 2010 did not result in a significant improvement in people’s livelihoods, which were largely depleted during three years of strict blockade”.
“Exit permits via Israel continued to be granted only on an exceptional basis, with an insignificant increase in the number of travellers (mainly traders) observed during the second half of 2010 compared to the first half – from 106 to 114 persons a day,” the report noted.
Some middle-aged Palestinian Christians leaving Gaza to find work elsewhere, with children and elderly people being left behind.
ACN was told this has created huge problems for the Catholic schools and other social initiatives which depend on the support of the faithful and outside aid.
The Church runs a number of projects to support the local community.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem funds two schools in Fr Hernández’s parish, attended by 1100 boys and girls.
Like the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary’s school, these accept students regardless of their religion – and most pupils come from Muslim families. Fr Hernández said schools needed help to set up libraries, run holiday programs and buy Arabic Bibles.
The Church also provides care for pensioners, people with disabilities and individuals suffering trauma.
In Gaza, four sisters of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity care for nearly 25 pensioners who lack basic needs.
He also spoke of the Church’s plans to renovate the parish centre and buy a mini-bus to help transport the elderly and those with mobility problems.
