Three Christians were killed and ten others wounded last Thursday when an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) mortar round struck Holy Family Church—Gaza’s only Catholic parish—where civilians, Muslim and Christian, had been sheltering since the war began after October 7, 2023. As of today, the IDF confirmed that the church was hit by stray munitions (from a mortar, not a tank as previously alleged). While the tragic incident underscores the vulnerability of civilians in conflict zones, Western outrage—if lacking nuance—risks playing into Hamas’s narrative of indiscriminate Israeli aggression, ultimately serving its strategic aims.
Hamas’s strategic objective in the war has been to get its adversary, the IDF, to kill as many Palestinians as possible—a strategic end that may be without precedent—by using human shields. It embeds in schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, mosques, and churches, and then attacks the IDF in the hopes that it will return fire and kill civilians, condemning the IDF in the eyes of the world.
The IDF, in contrast, has sought to minimize civilian casualties in pursuit of Israel’s war aims: to rescue the hostages (fifty of whom are still being held) and destroy Hamas. Yet the moral scrutiny of much of the world has been on the IDF exclusively; it’s difficult to see how that exclusive attention on the IDF has disincentivized the use of human shields or lowered civilian casualties.
More: https://firstthings.com/islamists-and-the-tragedy-of-holy-family-church/
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