MP Leyla Moran worried family trapped in Gaza church will not survive one week before Christmas
An MP who has family members she says are trapped in a church in Gaza is worried they will not survive until Christmas.
Layla Moran told Sky News that around 300 people are trapped inside the Holy Family Church complex in Gaza City, including her five relatives.
After contacting her family today, the Liberal Democrats’ foreign affairs spokesperson said that they have been sheltering at the Catholic church for more than 60 days and that Israeli forces will not allow them to leave.
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She also said those sheltering at the church told her that the IDF have used white phosphorus in the compound, and a sniper killed two women who went into the courtyard.
The IDF have previously denied using white phosphorus in Gaza and said in a statement that no evidence shows the two women were killed by a sniper.
Ms Moran said: “We do not understand why this happening.
“We do not understand why they couldn’t have given warning if they were doing it. We do not know what the endgame here is.
“And my ask of the Israeli government is please leave my family alone, but I would also say it makes a mockery of the suggestion that the Israeli army is protecting civilians. They’re not.
“From what I’m hearing from these eyewitness accounts, they are targeting them. That is deeply concerning.
“It’s not for me to make a judgement on whether or not that is lawful in these awful laws of war, that’s for the international criminal court.
“But what I would say is as a family member, we are heartbroken, we don’t know if they’re going to survive and it’s a week before Christmas.”
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Ms Moran’s extended family – a grandmother, her son, his wife and their 11-year-old twins – are Christian Palestinians who she says fled to the Holy Family Church after their home was destroyed in an IDF bombing.
She told Sky News a sixth relative, her 81-year-old “family member’s husband, a grandfather figure as it were, the oldest of them all”, died partly because of dehydration while sheltering at the church.
The MP also said “we haven’t got a clue” how long her family will be in the complex, and added: “They’ve been there 60 days, so if there were Hamas fighters there I don’t understand why it’s taken this long to say anything.
“But there has been no warning, there has been no leaflet drop, there has been no phone call to the father or the priest.
“We know they have his number, because today, they did manage to contact the priest and say that between the hours of 2pm and 4pm this afternoon, they wouldn’t shoot at people.”
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Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, December 16, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Pope speaks after IDF sniper ‘kills two’ in church
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, an ecclesiastical office for the Latin Catholics across the region, also claimed the IDF killed two women at the Holy Family Church on Saturday.
In a statement, they said the women, which they identified as a mother and daughter, were walking to the Sister’s Convent when the shooting started.
“One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety,” it said, adding that seven others were also shot and wounded in the attack at the complex.
The Pope lamented that “unarmed civilians are targets for bombs and gunfire” in response to the reports on Sunday.
During his weekly Angelus prayer, he said: “This has happened even within the parish complex of the Holy Family, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick and have disabilities, sisters.
“Some are saying, ‘This is terrorism and war.’ Yes, it is war, it is terrorism. That is why Scripture says that ‘God puts an end to war… the bow he breaks and the spear he snaps’.”
The Israel Defence Force said in a statement to the BBC: “During the dialogue between the IDF and representatives of the community, no reports of a hit on the church, nor civilians being injured or killed, were raised.
“A review of the IDF’s operational findings support this.”
Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.
According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.
The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.
On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.
Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.
Palestinian children struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.
It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.
The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.
It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.
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More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate against the Houthis and their Iranian “masters” after the group launched a missile attack on the country’s main international airport.
A missile fired by the group from Yemen landed near Ben Gurion Airport, causing panic among passengers in the terminal building.
“Attacks by the Houthis emanate from Iran,” Mr Netanyahu wrote on X. “Israel will respond to the Houthi attack against our main airport AND, at a time and place of our choosing, to their Iranian terror masters.”
Israeli police officers investigate the missile crater. Pic: Reuters
The missile impact left a plume of smoke and briefly halted flights and commuter traffic at the airport. Some international carriers have cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv for several days.
Four people were lightly wounded, paramedic service Magen David Adom said.
Air raid sirens went off across Israel and footage showed passengers yelling and rushing for cover.
The attack came hours before senior Israeli cabinet ministers were set to vote on whether to intensify the country’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, and as the army began calling up thousands of reserves in anticipation of a wider operation in the enclave.
Houthi military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the group fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at the airport.
Iran’s defence minister later told a state TV broadcaster that if the country was attacked by the US or Israel, it would target their bases, interests and forces where necessary.
Israel’s military said several attempts to intercept the missile were unsuccessful.
Air, road and rail traffic were halted after the attack, police said, though it resumed around an hour later.
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Yemen’s Houthis have been firing missiles at Israel since its war with Hamas in Gaza began on 7 October 2023, and while most have been intercepted, some have penetrated the country’s missile defence systems and caused damage.
Israel has previously struck the group in Yemen in retaliation and the US and UK have also launched strikes after the Houthis began attacking international shipping, saying it was in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war with Hamas.
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