Against the east wall, flanking the church entrance, are wooden statues of Mary and the Archangel Gabriel by Jacopo della Quercia.
Wooden statues of Mary and the Archangel Gabriel flank the church entrance.
Its northern deserts were a battleground in the Egypt-Israeli conflicts of the 1950s and 1960s, and it was occupied by Israel for many months before it passed permanently back into Egypt's hands with the treaty of 1979.