For Palestinian Christians, a Sunday spent mourning civilians killed at a Gaza church

A woman covers her face at a special prayer service for the victims of an airstrike at a Gaza church, held Sunday at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem. (Claire Harbage/NPR)

JERUSALEM — Across the Holy Land on Sunday, Christian churches dedicated services to the victims of an Israeli airstrike that killed more than a dozen people sheltering at a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza.

In recent years, the Church of St. Porphyrius in Gaza City had come to serve as a shelter in times of conflict between Israel and militants in Gaza, including Hamas, the group that earlier this month unleashed the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in the country's history.