Mother Teresa's nuns hang on in small convent near wrecked Gaza hospital

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Source: Vatican News, CMEP

Three nuns of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, based near Gaza's virtually destroyed Al-Shifa hospital, have been struggling to support roughly 60 trapped people, including the elderly and disabled, with only intermittent contact with the outside world, according to a priest in India who recently spoke with one of the sisters.

Fighting around the hospital before the temporary ceasefire began on Friday, has been especially fierce, as Israel accused Hamas of running a command centre in tunnels under the hospital, and of using doctors and patients as human shields.

The intense combat in the area has affected not only the nearby Holy Family Catholic Church, the lone Catholic parish in Gaza, but also the small Missionaries of Charity convent nearby.

"In the convent, there are three sisters and 60 residents, handicapped and mentally challenged children and old people bedridden with bedsores, who have no food, water, medicine, electricity, or gas," said Father Francis Xavier Rayappangari, commissary of the Holy Land in India.

"Communication from outside is cut off, and the entire area is surrounded by the [Israeli] army," he told Crux. "Once in a while, their landline telephone gets connected."

Rayappangari said recently he was able to speak briefly to a Missionary of Charity sister in Jerusalem, who had spoken with the nuns in the Gaza convent, and who described the realities they face.

"Sometime some generous and courageous people bring something for them to eat," Fr Rayappangari was told.

"Whatever they receive from outside, the sisters first serve the residents. If there is anything left, they eat. Sometimes they get just one meal a day … most of the time it is just one meal a day," he said.

Rayappangari said food supplies are becoming a steadily greater challenge.

"One day they had just one loaf of bread shared among the three," he said. "The other day it was just an orange, and the three sisters shared it among them."

Rayappangari also said witnessing the horrors of war has become a daily occurrence not only at the convent but also the nearby parish, where an estimated 700 people have sought refuge from the shelling and combat.

"May the Prince of Peace give peace to this land," he said.

In February this year, the Sisters celebrated their 50th anniversary in Gaza. Read more about the Sisters in Gaza here:

https://cmc-terrasanta.org/en/media/terra-santa-news/29667/the-golden-jubilee-of-missionaries-of-charity-sisters-in-gaza