School reopens in Gaza church after three-year hiatus

Fr Gabriel Romanelli IVE, priest of Gaza’s only Roman Catholic parish, told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that the reopening of the school would be “like a light in the darkness for the local community that has experienced so much suffering”.

More than 450 people were living in the school, seeking shelter from the Israeli strikes that followed the Hamas attacks, but now that many of them have been able to return to their homes or to seek alternative shelter, the school is able to reopen its doors.

Holy Family School serves not only the local parish, but also the wider community, enabling Muslim and Christian pupils to learn side by side.

Before the war, five Christian schools operated in Gaza – three Catholic, one Orthodox and one Evangelical – but Holy Family School is so far the only one to have reopened, so all Christian pupils will attend this school, making up around 13 per cent of the student body.

George Akroush, director of the Project Development Office of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, told ACN that this will create “a strong sense of community” and show the children “that the Church remains close to them, accompanying them in the midst of all they are going through”.

Fr Romanelli said, “There is almost nowhere in Gaza that has not been destroyed. Destruction is all around.

“But we have worked hard to make the school a safe environment, where the children – who have been through so much – can feel safe. For the students and the families, re-opening the school will bring some sense of normality . . . even though nothing is normal in Gaza.”

Fr Romanelli told ACN that the curriculum had been redesigned to take into account the level of trauma that both the pupils and the teachers are suffering.

A United Nations report this year said that the war had “destroyed the very essence of childhood” in Gaza, killing at least 20,179 children and injuring 44,143. The territory has the largest number of child amputees in the world.

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School reopens at Gaza’s Holy Family Church for first time in three years (By Aili Winstanley Channer/The Tablet)