The strike killed three people and injured several others, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which oversees the small parish, said Thursday.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the highest ranking Catholic official in Jerusalem, entered Gaza on Friday to bring humanitarian aid and comfort to victims of Israel's strike on the sole Catholic church of the Palestinian enclave.

Top church leaders in the Holy Land headed into Gaza Friday for a rare solidarity visit one day after an Israeli shell slammed into the only Catholic church in the territory, killing three people