JERUSALEM: Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, arrived in Gaza Friday for Christmas Mass at the Holy Family Parish in Gaza City, which hosts the Palestinian territory’s only Roman Catholic church.
The senior churchman “arrived in Gaza today for a pastoral visit to the Holy Family Parish, on the eve of the Christmas celebrations,” his office said in a statement.
It said the visit “reaffirms the enduring bond of the Holy Family Parish in Gaza with the wider Diocese of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.”
During his visit, Pizzaballa will review developments in humanitarian response on the ground in the Gaza Strip as well as rehabilitation efforts.
He will also lead an anticipated Christmas Mass at the Holy Family Parish on Sunday, the statement said.
During his last visit to Gaza in July, Pizzaballa brought in 500 tons of food for residents suffering from shortages caused by Israeli restrictions on goods entering the devastated territory.
Pizzaballa and his Greek Orthodox counterpart, Theophilos III, were visiting after Israeli fire hit the Holy Family Church, killing three people.
A famine declared in Gaza in August is now over thanks to improved access for humanitarian aid, the United Nations said on Friday, also warning that the food situation there remained “critical.”
About 1,000 of 2.2 million Gaza inhabitants are Christians, most of them Orthodox.
The Latin Patriarchate says 135 Catholics live in Gaza. They sought shelter inside the compound of the Holy Family Church in the first days of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Some members of the Greek Orthodox church joined them in the compound owned by the Roman Catholic church.