⛪ Israel Tank Bombs Only Catholic Church in Gaza, Cardinal Questions IDF's "Mistake"
How the bombing of Gaza's only Catholic church reveals the systematic targeting of hope itself—and what borderland communities know about state violence
😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
👧🏾✊🏾👦🏾
When powerful countries don't want certain people to exist, they don't just target the people—they target the places that help those people survive and stay connected to each other. 🌍 In Gaza, where Palestinian families have been trapped by an Israeli blockade for years, there's a special church ⛪ that became like a community center, helping both Christians ✝️ and Muslims ☪️ with food 🥖, medical care 💊, and a safe place to sleep 🛏️.
For over a year, the Pope 📞 called this church every single night 🌙 to check on everyone, which made the whole world 🌍 pay attention 👀 to what was happening there. This week, an Israeli tank shot at the church and killed three people 💔. Israel said it was an accident, but an important religious leader said he doesn't believe that—the church was hit "directly" on purpose.
This connects to what happens here in Arizona, where people trying to help migrants crossing the dangerous desert 🏜️ also get targeted by authorities who call their actions "illegal" ⚠️ or claim their supply stations are "accidentally" destroyed. The same unfair systems that hurt people in Gaza also hurt people trying to cross borders safely. 🤝
🗝️ Takeaways
🎯 Israel's "mistake" narrative crumbles under Cardinal Pizzaballa's direct challenge—the church was hit "directly" by a tank, not accidentally
⛪ Holy Family Church wasn't just a religious site—it sheltered 500 displaced Palestinians and provided medical care, food distribution, and hope under siege
📞 Pope Francis called this church every night for over a year during the war, making it a powerful symbol of global Catholic witness to Palestinian suffering
🔗 Same playbook, different borders: The systems targeting Palestinian sanctuaries mirror those destroying migrant aid stations in Arizona's desert
🕊️ Faith-based resistance transcends religions—Muslims and Christians sheltering together challenges narratives about "religious conflict"
💪 Institutional courage matters: Cardinal Pizzabella's truth-telling shows how religious leaders can challenge state violence rather than enable it
🌐 Global solidarity is possible: Understanding Gaza's siege helps us understand border militarization and vice versa
When Sanctuaries Become Targets: Gaza Church Strike & Israel's "Mistake" Doctrine
Understanding the Attack on Gaza's Only Catholic Church Through the Lens of Borderland Resistance
By Three Sonorans
Aquí en la frontera, we know something about sanctuaries under siege. We know what it means when the powerful label their violence a "mistake" while the bodies pile up.
Today, as I write from the borderlands of Southern Arizona—where militarized borders and surveillance technologies create their own apartheid—another sanctuary has been targeted, this time thousands of miles away in Gaza.
On Thursday morning, July 17, 2025, an Israeli tank shell struck the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, the only Catholic church in the besieged Palestinian enclave. Three people died. Ten more were wounded, including Father Gabriel Romanelli, the Argentine priest who had become a global symbol of resilience after Pope Francis called him every single night for over a year during this war.
Israel called it a "mistake."
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, isn't buying it. "The IDF says by mistake, but we are not sure about this," he told Vatican News. "They hit the Church directly."
Qué conveniente, this doctrine of "mistakes."
Here in the Sonoran Desert, we hear the same language when Border Patrol agents kill migrants seeking water, when ICE raids target schools and hospitals, when federal agents destroy agua stations left by humanitarian groups.
Always a "mistake." Always an "accident." Never a pattern.
La Historia Behind the Headlines
To understand what happened at Holy Family Church, you need to know the context that mainstream media won't give you.
Gaza is home to about 2.3 million Palestinians living under an Israeli blockade that has lasted since 2007, longer than many of the children there have been alive. Within this population of mostly Muslims, there exists a tiny Christian community of around 1,000 people, with only about 135 Catholics according to the Latin Patriarchate.
The Holy Family Church isn't just a place of worship—it's been a lifeline. Since October 7, 2023, when this latest phase of Israel's war on Gaza began, the church has sheltered 500 displaced Palestinians, both Christians and Muslims, including more than 50 children with disabilities and their families.
Father Gabriel Romanelli, who has ministered in Gaza for nearly 30 years, became internationally known not for his own words, but for who called him. Every night at 8 p.m., Pope Francis would call the parish via WhatsApp. Cada noche, without fail, for over a year and a half. Even when rockets fell nearby, even when communications were cut, the Pope would try for hours until he reached them.
"He never gave up until he reached us and delivered his message each night," Romanelli told The Washington Post. These weren't diplomatic calls—Francis would ask what they had eaten, if anyone was injured, and if they had access to clean water. Children in the church would cheer "Viva Papa!" when the phone rang.
Francis died in April 2025. The children called him "el abuelo"—grandfather.
The Strike: "Mistake" or Message?
According to multiple reports, the tank shell hit the church's roof at around 10:10 a.m. local time, scattering shrapnel across the courtyard where elderly women were sitting in a Caritas charity tent. The blast killed a man and a woman who died during surgery at nearby Al-Ahli Hospital. Father Romanelli was hit by shrapnel in his leg but survived.
Caritas, the Catholic charity running mental health services at the church, had provided GPS coordinates for the entire compound to the Israeli military early in the war. They knew exactly where it was. They knew it was sheltering civilians. They knew it had special significance to the global Catholic community.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it "stray ammunition" and told Donald Trump in a phone call that it was a "mistake." The Israeli Foreign Ministry released the standard response: "Israel never targets churches or religious sites."
But Cardinal Pizzaballa—a man who has spent years navigating the political minefields of the Holy Land—chose his words carefully. The church was hit "directly," he emphasized. Not by accident. Not collaterally. Directamente.
This isn't the first time Holy Family Church has been targeted. In December 2023, an Israeli military sniper shot and killed two women sheltering inside. Also called a "mistake."
The Borderland Parallel: Sanctuaries Under Siege
Those of us living in the militarized borderlands recognize this pattern because we live it. Churches here in Southern Arizona that offer sanctuary to migrants face surveillance, infiltration, and harassment. Water stations in the desert—placed there by groups like No More Deaths to prevent migrants from dying of thirst—are routinely destroyed by Border Patrol agents who then claim they're "following protocol."
The Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s, which began right here in Tucson, understood something that Gaza's Christians understand today: when your government labels certain people as disposable, every space that offers them humanity becomes a target.
Father Romanelli and his congregation weren't just providing religious services—they were running a dispensary, a mental health clinic, and offering food distribution to thousands of families. As Romanelli told the National Catholic Reporter, "We've helped more than 7,000 families—41,000 people—but that's only 10% of the population here."
Sound familiar?
Here in Arizona, churches provide similar services to migrants who have been deliberately funneled into the deadliest parts of the Sonoran Desert by "prevention through deterrence" policies. When those churches become too effective at keeping people alive, they suddenly face "investigations" and "security concerns."
The Geopolitics of "Mistakes"
Let's be clear about what this church represents in the broader context of la lucha. Gaza's Christian community exists as living proof that Palestinian identity isn't monolithic, that resistance to occupation transcends religious boundaries. The fact that Muslims and Christians were sheltering together in Holy Family Church threatens the Israeli narrative that this is a war against "Islamic extremism."
When Pope Francis called that church every night, he wasn't just offering spiritual comfort—he was bearing witness to the world. Those calls made Gaza's suffering impossible to ignore for the global Catholic community of 1.4 billion people. Now that Francis is gone, Pope Leo XIV has continued to call for ceasefires, but the geopolitical calculus has shifted.
The timing of this strike—just three months after Francis's death, just as the new pontificate is finding its footing—sends a message. Testing boundaries. Seeing how much "global outrage" a dead Pope's legacy can still generate.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the attack, writing on X: "The attacks against the civilian population that Israel has been carrying out for months are unacceptable. No military action can justify such behavior." But words without consequences are just performance.
Trump's America, Israel's Carte Blanche
We can't discuss this strike without acknowledging the broader political context. Donald Trump returned to the presidency in January 2025, and his administration has given Israel an even more explicit green light for its actions in Gaza.
When Netanyahu called Trump to explain the church strike as a "mistake," the White House press secretary simply relayed the message without any apparent criticism.
This is the same Trump administration that has ramped up border militarization here at home, deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles, and continued the systematic dehumanization of migrants that makes "accidents" so much easier to justify.
The connection isn't coincidental—it's structural.
Both Israel's treatment of Palestinians and the U.S. treatment of migrants rely on the same mechanisms: walls, surveillance technology, dehumanizing rhetoric, and the classification of certain populations as inherent security threats. The technologies tested on Palestinians often end up on our border. The legal frameworks that justify collective punishment abroad get imported to justify family separation and detention here.
Beyond the Headlines: What Holy Family Church Represents
What the mainstream media misses—what it always misses—is the deeper significance of spaces like Holy Family Church. This isn't just about religious freedom or civilian casualties, though those matter enormously. It's about the infrastructure of survival under siege.
In the same way that churches here in the borderlands become espacios sagrados where gente can find food, medical care, legal aid, and dignity regardless of their documentation status, Holy Family Church represents something more dangerous to power than any military target: it represents the possibility of alternative community, of solidarity across difference, of caring for the most vulnerable even when—especially when—your government has marked them for elimination.
When Father Romanelli described their daily routine to the National Catholic Reporter—"We do Adoration to the Blessed Sacrament for an hour every day in silence. In the afternoon, we do the Rosary and Holy Mass. One of us is always available for confession,"—he was describing more than religious observance. He was describing the maintenance of humanity under conditions designed to destroy it.
That's why the strike wasn't a mistake. You don't accidentally target the infrastructure of hope.
The Cardinal's Courage and What It Teaches Us
Cardinal Pizzaballa's public questioning of Israel's narrative represents something we rarely see from institutional religious leadership: truth-telling in the face of power. When he said "we are not sure about this" regarding Israel's claim of an accident, he was doing what prophetic religion has always demanded—speaking truth to power even when it's dangerous, even when it's politically inconvenient.
Here in the borderlands, we've seen what happens to religious leaders who take similar stands. They get audited by the IRS. They get visited by federal agents. They get labeled as "political actors" who have stepped outside their proper role.
But Pizzaballa understands something that we in the Sanctuary Movement have always known: neutrality in the face of systematic oppression is complicity. When children are dying, when families are being deliberately separated, when basic human dignity is under assault, religious institutions have a choice: comfort the comfortable or afflict the afflicted.
As Pizzaballa told Vatican News, "It's too early to talk about all this, we need to understand what happened, what should be done, especially to protect our people." Note the phrasing—our people. Not just Catholics. Not just Christians. Our people—all of them seeking sanctuary.
The Pattern of Targeting Sacred Spaces
What happened at Holy Family Church fits a pattern that anyone familiar with counterinsurgency doctrine recognizes. You don't just target fighters—you target the social infrastructure that enables communities to survive. Schools, hospitals, water treatment plants, religious sites, and community centers.
According to the United Nations, nearly 70% of Gaza's structures have been destroyed. That's not "collateral damage"—that's systematic destruction of the possibility of normal life.
We see the same pattern here on the border.
Water stations get destroyed not because they pose a military threat, but because they represent an alternative vision of how we might treat people crossing the desert. Humanitarian aid becomes criminalized not because food and water are dangerous, but because compassion undermines the deterrent effect of letting people die.
The targeting of Holy Family Church represents the same logic: eliminate the spaces where people can maintain dignity, community, and hope under siege.
Faith, Resistance, and the Long Arc
Despite everything—the bombing, the death, the "mistakes"—Father Romanelli told reporters his faith remains unshaken: "I have never had temptations against faith; in fact, it has strengthened me."
That kind of faith—faith that persists not because of comfort but because of commitment to justice—is what sustains movements for liberation everywhere. It's the faith of the Sanctuary Movement, of abuelitas who cross the desert to find their grandchildren, of water carriers who keep filling stations even knowing they'll be destroyed.
It's the faith that built the Underground Railroad, that sustained the United Farm Workers movement, that keeps indigenous communities fighting for water rights and sacred sites. It's a faith rooted not in individual salvation but in collective liberation—the understanding that none of us are free until all of us are free.
When Pope Francis called Gaza every night, he was modeling that kind of faith. When Cardinal Pizzaballa questions the official narrative, he's practicing it. When Father Romanelli continues holding Mass in a bombed church, he's living it.
The New Pope's Test
Pope Leo XIV faces an early test of his papacy in how he responds to this attack on his predecessor's spiritual legacy. His initial statement called for an immediate ceasefire and expressed "deep sadness" over the military attack, but it didn't directly condemn Israel's actions.
The Catholic Church—like all institutions with global reach—faces the perpetual tension between prophetic witness and political pragmatism. Francis chose to witness, calling Gaza every night even when it was diplomatically inconvenient. Leo XIV will define his papacy by whether he continues that tradition or retreats into safer, more "balanced" language.
For those of us in movements for justice, this reminds us that institutional support is always conditional, always subject to political calculation. We can't depend on it. However, we can use moments like this—when institutional leaders speak the truth—to amplify our own voices and build broader coalitions.
Looking Forward: Esperanza and Strategy
So where does this leave us? How do we respond to yet another "mistake" that fits a pattern of systematic violence against the most vulnerable?
First, we name the pattern. The same technologies, legal frameworks, and military contractors that enable Israel's siege of Gaza enable our own border militarization. The same dehumanizing rhetoric that makes Palestinian children acceptable casualties makes migrant children acceptable casualties. Understanding these connections is the first step toward building solidarity across struggles.
Second, we support the infrastructure of sanctuary wherever it exists. Whether it's churches in Gaza sheltering displaced families or churches in Arizona offering sanctuary to migrants, these spaces represent alternative possibilities that power tries to eliminate. We fund them, defend them, and when necessary, rebuild them.
Third, we hold our institutions accountable. When religious leaders like Cardinal Pizzaballa speak truth, we amplify their voices. When they retreat into silence, we remind them of their prophetic calling. When politicians offer thoughts and prayers while continuing to fund the systems that create the violence, we organize to replace them.
Finally, we remember that resistance is fundamentally about esperanza—hope that creates possibilities where none seemed to exist. Father Romanelli continuing to hold Mass in a bombed church. Families in Gaza sharing scarce resources with neighbors. Volunteers in the desert leaving water for people they'll never meet. These aren't just individual acts of kindness—they're the building blocks of another world.
The Call
The attack on Holy Family Church wasn't just an attack on Gaza's Christians—it was an attack on the idea that sanctuaries can exist under siege, that communities can care for each other even when their governments have abandoned them, that faith and resistance can sustain hope in the darkest times.
Those of us living in our own militarized borderlands have a responsibility to connect these struggles, to see Gaza's Christians not as distant victims but as compañeros in a global struggle against systems that treat human beings as disposable.
Here's what you can do:
Support Palestinian relief organizations like the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and Medical Aid for Palestinians that are working to provide humanitarian aid despite the siege.
Support local sanctuary and migrant justice organizations in your community. The same systems creating suffering in Gaza are creating suffering here.
Pressure your representatives to end U.S. military aid to Israel and to demilitarize our borders. Use Cardinal Pizzaballa's questioning of the "accident" narrative to push for real accountability.
Subscribe to Three Sonorans to stay informed about the connections between struggles for justice here in the borderlands and around the world. We need independent media that tells the stories mainstream outlets won't touch.
Support indigenous land and water protectors whose struggles for tierra sagrada connect directly to Palestinians' struggles for their ancestral home.
Most importantly, remember that every tank shell "accidentally" striking a church, every water station mysteriously destroyed in the desert, every migrant child who dies in custody is a choice made by systems we can change.
La lucha sigue. The struggle continues. And just as Father Romanelli continues to serve Mass in a bombed church, like Cardinal Pizzaballa speaking truth to power, and like those children in Gaza who still cheer "Viva Papa!" even though their grandfather is gone, we keep building the world we know is possible, one sanctuary at a time.
En solidaridad y esperanza, Three Sonorans
What questions does this attack on Gaza's church raise for you about the nature of sanctuary and resistance in our current moment? How do you see the connections between military violence abroad and border militarization at home?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below—we want to hear your analysis and build together.
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Every time we think the Zionists have reached rock bottom, they lower that bar yet more. This is a loathsome, despicable crime!