Pope labels Gaza airstrikes ‘cruelty – not war’
In an address to Catholic cardinals, Pope Francis has condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, saying children are being bombed, labelling it ‘cruelty – not war’.
Pope Francis arrives to pray in front of the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, on May 26, 2014. Photo by Nati Shohat/FLASH90
Pope Francis has again condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, a day after an Israeli government minister publicly denounced the pontiff for suggesting the global community should study whether the military offensive there constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people.
Francis opened his annual Christmas address to the Catholic cardinals who lead the Vatican’s various departments with what appeared to be a reference to Israeli airstrikes on Friday that killed at least 25 Palestinians in Gaza.
“Yesterday, children were bombed,” the pope said on Saturday.
“This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart.”
The pope, as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, is usually careful about taking sides in conflicts, but he has recently been more outspoken about Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian militant group Hamas.
In book excerpts published last month, the pontiff said some international experts said that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide”.
Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli sharply criticised those comments in an unusual open letter published by Italian newspaper Il Foglio on Friday.
Chikli said the pope’s remarks amounted to a “trivialisation” of the term genocide.
Israel’s foreign ministry said that Israel was defending itself against the cruelty exemplified by Hamas militants “hiding behind children while trying to murder Israeli children”, holding 100 hostages and abusing them.
“Unfortunately, the Pope has chosen to ignore all of this,” the ministry said, adding that the “death of any innocent person in a war is a tragedy”.
“Israel makes extraordinary efforts to prevent harm to innocents, while Hamas makes extraordinary efforts to increase harm to Palestinian civilians,” the ministry said.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry added: “Cruelty is terrorists hiding behind children while trying to murder Israeli children; cruelty is holding 100 hostages for 442 days, including a baby and children, by terrorists and abusing them,” the Foreign Ministry said on Saturday night.
“Unfortunately, the pope has chosen to ignore all of this, as well as the fact that Israel’s actions have targeted terrorists who used children as human shields,” the Foreign Ministry said. “The pope’s remarks are particularly disappointing as they are disconnected from the true and factual context of Israel’s fight against jihadist terrorism — a multi-front war that was forced upon it starting on October 7.”
Francis also said on Saturday that the Catholic bishop of Jerusalem, known as a patriarch, had tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Friday to visit Catholics there, but was denied entry.
The patriarch’s office told Reuters it was not able to comment on the pope’s remarks about the patriarch being denied entry.
The Israeli military said on Saturday the patriarch’s entry had been approved and he would enter Gaza on Sunday, barring any major security issues. Aid from the patriarch’s office entered last week, the military said.
Israel allows clerics to enter Gaza and “works in co-operation with the Christian community to make it easier for the Christian population that remains in the Gaza Strip – including co-ordinating its removal from the Gaza Strip to a third country,” a statement from the military said.
The war began when Hamas-led Palestinian militants attacked southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing 1200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
By: Joshua McElwee/Reuters with TPS
What the Pope and the World do not understand is that densely populated Gaza is embedded with Gaza murderers and their civilian supporters who are publicly sworn to attack Israel again at the first opportunity as dictated by their Islamic religion for the past 1400 years because Jews are non-followers and Israel has been under endless attacks since 1948 by Muslim Arab and Iranian nations.If Israel is to survive as a nation she must preemptively attack her enemies at the first sign that another attack is being planned. It appears that the Pope does not know the history of warfare otherwise he would realize that Israel has always made extraordinary efforts to spare the civilian population of her enemies which in the case of Gaza is impossible because of their embedding with the civilian population.
So disappointed (again !!) in Pope Francis! As a leader of a world community he should be praying for peace for ALL and especially for the return of the hostages killed kidnapped in a terrorist act. As someone who was raised Catholic, I find his analysis in this and other areas theologically and historically inaccurate and highly biased. So over him that I wasn’t going to reply – but I’m doing so in the hope that the Jewish community will know he does not speak for us all.
The Pope obviously doesn’t have a clue about war. He lives in a dreamland, cocooned in the Vatican away from reality.