UK MP fears for relatives stuck in Gaza church

A British lawmaker said Monday that she fears her relatives trapped in Gaza's only Roman Catholic church will not survive to see Christmas.

Five extended family members of Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran are among around 300 people sheltering inside the Holy Family church complex in Gaza City.

Moran, 41, says they are running out of food and water, have no electricity, and are petrified after two women staying there were reportedly shot dead by an Israeli soldier.

"It's dire, absolutely dire," Moran, who became the UK's first MP of Palestinian descent when she was elected in 2017, told AFP in an interview.

"They need water, they need food and they need it quickly. There's only so long a human can survive without water," she said.

The bloodiest-ever Gaza war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 that has seen Israel retaliate with heavy bombardments and ground assaults that have devastated much of the Palestinian territory.

Hamas militants killed 1,139 people, mostly civilians, in the attack and abducted around 250 others, according to updated Israeli figures.

More than 18,800 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in the Israeli campaign to wipe out Hamas, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Moran's relatives -- a grandmother, her son, his wife and their 11-year-old twins -- sought refuge in the church during the first week of the conflict about 60 days ago.

Another elderly family member was with them but died in the middle of November, "primarily through dehydration", Moran said.

"They had to bury him there," the Oxford West and Abingdon MP, whose mother is Palestinian, said in her office inside the British parliament.

- Desperation -

Moran, who says she is receiving information from immediate family who have sporadic contact with relatives in the church, says violence has "massively escalated" around the compound in the past week.

A Christian mother and daughter were shot and killed on the grounds by an Israeli sniper, according to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Pope Francis condemned the deaths of "unarmed civilians".

The Israeli army has said it "does not target civilians, no matter their religion".

Moran said she had been told that a tank has appeared outside the church and that four snipers were now "pointing into the compound itself".

"They are absolutely desperate, they are terrified," added Moran, who is the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesperson.

With Christmas just a week away, Moran said she cried at every mention of Bethlehem, the West Bank town celebrated by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus.

"Christmas is not just a time of peace on earth and goodwill to men, but actually centred on Palestine as the centre of the story," she said.

She is calling for an "immediate, bilateral ceasefire" and welcomed the British government's switch this week from calling for "humanitarian pauses" to a "sustainable" ceasefire.

She hopes her relatives can escape Gaza by Christmas because she is "an eternal optimist".

"But to be perfectly honest, I'll be happy if they're just alive," she said.