Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran has said her relatives are days away from dying as they remain among the hundreds of civilians trapped in a Catholic Church without water or food.
The Oxford West and Abingdon representative has previously said that one of her family members has died in Gaza.
On Saturday, Ms Moran - who is of Palestinian descent - tweeted about the plight of her relatives who are stuck in Holy Family Church in Gaza City as Israeli Defense Force soldiers remain outside.
She wrote: “Soldiers are at the gates and there was a fire when they hit one of the (already dysfunctional) generators.
“There is no water left. There are 300 people there. We don’t know why this is happening. Are they going to be expelled from a church just days before Christmas??!”
Update. Soldiers are at the gates and there was a fire when they hit one of the (already dysfunctional) generators. There is no water left. There are 300 people there. We don’t know why this is happening. Are they going to be expelled from a church just days before Christmas??! https://t.co/iNoUmzoKnf
— Layla Moran 🔶 (@LaylaMoran) December 16, 2023
Also on Saturday, pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered to call for an end to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
Ms Moran, who became an MP in 2017, had previously tweeted to say that outside the church a bin collector and the janitor have been shot.
She later wrote on Twitter/X: “I’m grateful to all who have been helping to raise the alarm about the situation in the church. It’s going from bad to worse.”
Ms Moran has previously shared her worries about her family members trapped in Gaza.
It’s been a horrible few days. My family in the Catholic Church in Gaza city are reporting white phosphorous and gunfire into their compound. The bin collector and the janitor have been shot and their bodies are laying outside and remain uncollected. 1/2
— Layla Moran 🔶 (@LaylaMoran) December 15, 2023
She told the Commons last month: “I wanted to let the House know that today I lost my first family member.
“The reason why this is important, having spoken about how they are in a church in Gaza City and how they didn’t, I am afraid, die of a bomb, instead they died perhaps for lack of food, perhaps for dehydration.
“Their health deteriorated in the last week and they couldn’t get to the hospital they needed.”
Ms Moran told the Commons she planned to back calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as she raised the point of order about her family member.Earlier this week, Rishi Sunak warned Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “too many people” have died in Gaza during his military campaign to destroy Hamas.
The IDF said: "The IDF takes claims regarding harm to sensitive sites with the utmost seriousness — especially churches — considering that Christian communities are a minority group in the Middle East. When reviewing incidents that may have taken place in the vicinity of churches in Gaza, it was found that an incident took place during yesterday afternoon (Saturday) in another area in Gaza, near the Latin Church in the Shejayia area. An initial review suggests that IDF troops, who were operating against Hamas terrorists in the area, operated against a threat that they identified in the area of the church. The IDF is conducting a thorough review of the incident.
"Yesterday (Saturday), a letter from the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem was received describing a tragic incident that took place in the Holy Family Parish which is located in the Rimal area in the Gaza Strip. Yesterday morning (Saturday), representatives of the church contacted the IDF regarding explosions that were heard near the church. During the dialogue between the IDF and representatives of the community, no reports of a hit on the church, nor civilians being injured or killed, were raised. A review of the IDF’s operational findings support this.
"The IDF only targets terrorists and terror infrastructure and does not target civilians, no matter their religion. The IDF takes vast measures to avoid harm to uninvolved civilians, while fighting against a terrorist organization which does everything to put civilians at risk - including by using civilians and holy sites as human shields for its terror activities."
