The right thing: Gaza's parish priest

As a young missionary priest, Father Gabriel Romanelli left his native Argentina to work in the Middle East. He went – he says - out of a passion for bringing Christ to the people wherever he was called.

He became Gaza’s only Catholic parish priest at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City. Life in the territory was never easy – but it became extraordinarily challenging after the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 when around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, according to Israel's Foreign Ministry.

The Gaza Hamas-run Health Ministry has put the number killed since the start of the war at around 74,000 including more than 20,000 children.

In this edition of his occasional series, The Right Thing, Mike Wooldridge finds out what motivated Fr Romanelli to return to his flock and stay with them through the dangers and hardships of the devastating war that followed the Hamas attack. On the day of the assault, he was in Bethlehem in the West Bank – and it took him nearly seven months to obtain permission from the Israeli authorities to go back to Gaza.

Back at his parish, Fr Romanelli and the community were sustained by daily phone calls from Pope Francis. Yet the danger was real: Father Romanelli has himself been injured, and dozens of Christians have died during the conflict.

Yet, even though he was offered opportunities to leave Gaza more than once, he has never felt tempted to do so: his place, he says, is with his Christian brothers and sisters in Gaza.

(Photo: Father Gabriel Romanelli, parish priest of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, celebrating mass. Credit: Fr Gabriel Romanelli)

Producer: Alex Strangwayes-Booth
Executive producer: Kristine Pommert
A CTVC production for BBC World Service