The only Catholic Church in Gaza, which Pope Francis called nightly since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, was hit by an Israeli shell this morning (July 17), killing three people and injuring 10 others, including the parish priest.

Pope Leo XIV spoke to Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, about the situation in the Gaza Strip, where on Thursday the area’s only Catholic church was hit by Israel.

Among those killed are 5 aid seekers, 3 women, 2 children as Israeli forces bombed shelters, homes of displaced civilians - Anadolu Ajansı

After a few minutes the guards tried to let a group of women join the front of the queue. The crowd surged forward and broke into the compound. When tear-gas grenades failed to stop the surge of desperate people, the guards stopped handing out boxes and closed the centre.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem said the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) struck Gaza’s sole Catholic Church in a raid on Thursday

Visas for the local leaders of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the human rights agency OHCHR and the agency supporting Palestinians in Gaza, UNRWA, have not been renewed in recent months.

Mourners attend the burial of Palestinian Christians Saad Salama and Foumia Ayyad at Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza July 17, 2025. The two parishioners were killed, according to medics, in an Israeli strike on the Holy Family Parish’s compound. (OSV News photo/Dawoud Abu Alkas, Reuters)

Sirens sounded in Netiv HaAsara, in southern Israel, at the northern border with the Gaza Strip, Israeli military said on Friday, adding that a projectile that crossed from the northern part of the Gaza Strip was intercepted. Al Arabiya’s trending ...