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An explosion was reported at the Church of St. Porphyrius in Gaza City on Thursday night, according to both Gaza’s interior ministry and the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The church, one of the oldest in the world, was reportedly sheltering several hundred displaced Palestinians at the time of the blast.
The ministry, which is controlled by the Hamas militant group, was quoted by AFP as saying the explosion left a “large number of martyrs and injured.”
Witnesses at the site told The Wall Street Journal that rescuers were digging through rubble, pulling out people, some of whom had sustained injuries. Majdy Jildah, a refugee at the Greek Orthodox church, said he believed a child had been killed.