Shafaqna English- Two of Gaza’s churches are in areas where Israel has ordered Palestinians to leave before a planned attack. But Gaza’s Christians refuse to abandon churches before the Israeli attack.
Gaza City– In the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, Fouad Abu Youssef, 34, wears a tattered, worn-out shirt as he sifts through a heap of salvaged clothes, remnants of what had been his home, hoping to find a change of clothes for his five-year-old daughter, Layla.
In the past two years of Israeli war on Gaza, Fouad, a member of Gaza’s small Christian minority, has buried his sister after an air strike and seen his own home and his family’s house in Gaza City’s Tal-al-Hawa neighbourhood collapse. Conditions grew so dire that Fouad, his elderly parents, and five siblings with their families were forced to live in a nearby cemetery before finally finding refuge in the church.
For more than a year, the Abu Youssef family has lived within the church’s quarters in the Zeitoun neighbourhood. They survived a close call with death when an Israeli tank shell struck the church in July, killing three people and wounding several others. And now, after Israel declared it was preparing for a major assault on Gaza City and called it a “dangerous combat zone” last week, the family cannot help but fear losing the roof over their heads once more and going back onto the streets, where it is even more dangerous.
Sources: Aljazeera