[6] During the hostilities, the Holy Family Church in Rimal became a refuge for over 300 displaced, mostly Christian,[6] individuals, and by the time of the killings, was sheltering 648 Gazans.

[6] After an intense exchange of emails through 14 to the 26 October between the Catholic Relief Services and U.S. Senate staffers, the latter had informed Israeli military liaisons that the church was sheltering civilians, providing them with the exact coordinates of 4 buildings.

[6][7] The IDF responded that it could not guarantee the safety of any civilians inside, urging that the community be evacuated, something that was not feasible given the many disabled and elderly in their care.

[12] She left the car and proceeded on foot, and then was shot in the leg by an Israeli sniper, and fell not far from al-Shifa Hospital, which was under siege at that time.

[14] Israeli tanks were stationed nearby, while IDF snipers had taken up positions in the apartment blocks that overlooked the compound, making movement between buildings in the limestone complex very dangerous.

Her daughter Samar worked as a cook for the physically and mentally[15] disabled children being cared for by the Teresan nuns of the Missionaries of Charity.

[14] On the morning of 16 December, according to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, an Israeli tank targeted and struck the Missionaries of Charity convent, which housed 54 disabled people.

A follow-up barrage of two shells rendered the hospice unihabitable, forcing the residents to be displaced and depriving several of the respiratory ventilators their condition required.

[18][3] Father Youssef, a Gazan priest, endeavoured, with a defective cell-phone contact, to get the Patriarchate to convey to the IDF that their area was a designated safe zone.

[3] Around noon, Edward Anton, Samar's brother who worked with Doctors Without Borders, thought he had observed the Israeli military outside the church and shouted warnings to those sheltering in the building to stay inside.

[15] The sister of one of the civilians in the compound told the BBC that those in the church were scared to leave for fear of being shot at, adding that "they believed the Israelis were shooting anything that moves".

[6] The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the most senior Catholic figure in the United Kingdom, said: "They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the Parish, where there are no belligerents.

[31][32] Bishop Atallah Hanna, the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia, publicly dismissed her assertions by noting that the presence of Gazan Christians had been attested for centuries.

[33] Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani condemned the killings, saying: "An (Israeli) sniper shot two women inside a church.