Christians Appeal as Gaza Church Campus is Left in Ruins

An explosion at the St. Porphyrios Greek Orthodox Church campus in Gaza has left the administration building in ruins, and at least 17 people dead, though numbers have not yet been officially confirmed. Several hundred people had been sheltering at the church complex, many of them sleeping, when the explosion went off the night of Oct. 19. The Hamas Ministry of Interior in Gaza blamed the explosion on an Israeli airstrike but responsibility for the explosion has not yet been independently verified.