ROME – Pope Francis said Saturday that Israel's recent air strikes on Gaza go beyond war and amount to an “atrocity.”
In his annual Christmas address, the Pope spoke frankly to members of the Holy See, praising Israel's airstrike At least 25 Palestinians, including seven children, were killed in Gaza on Friday.
“Yesterday, children were bombed. This is cruel. This is not war,” Francis said. “I want to say this because it moves my heart.”
The pope's sharp criticism of Israel's actions in the ongoing conflict is the latest in a series of similar rebukes, including calls for an investigation into whether Israel is guilty of “genocide” of Palestinians.
On Friday, Israeli government ministers published Open letter to Pope published in Italian daily newspaper Il FolioThey criticized him in an article titled “Dear Pope, the fight against Hamas is a right and moral duty.”
To suggest that Israel's military tactics against Hamas could amount to genocide is a “trivialization” of the term, writes Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Tsikri.
“As a people who lost six million sons and daughters in the Holocaust, we are particularly sensitive to the trivialization of the term “genocide,'' a trivialization that comes dangerously close to Holocaust denial,'' Chikuli said.
In late November, wall street journal's editorial board criticized Pope Francis for choosing “sides” against Israel in the ongoing conflict.
The council said the Pope “took sides in the war between Hamas and Israel. The headlines all read 'Pope,' 'Israel,' and 'genocide,' a major victory for anti-Israel forces.” Ta. declared With sharp commentary.
As reported by Breitbart News, in a book-length interview with Hernan Reyes Alcaide, Hope Never Disappoints: A Pilgrim for a Better WorldFrancis called for a “careful investigation” by international experts to determine whether Israel's military actions in Gaza met the “technical definition” of genocide.
“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of genocide,” the Pope said in the book.
The pope had already described Israel's military invasion of the Gaza Strip as “terrorism” and “genocide,” but he doubled down on his comments by suggesting that Israel's actions could amount to genocide.
“At a time when the Jewish people are fighting for their survival on many fronts against an enemy who seeks to destroy them, it is shocking for the Pope to accuse Jews, themselves victims of genocide, of genocide. There is something alarming.” journalThe editorial states:
“Especially after the brutal October 7 massacre of unarmed Israeli civilians that started the war and Hamas' subsequent strategy of using innocent Palestinian civilians as human shields,” the paper said. said.
Italian Holocaust survivors also criticized the Pope for suggesting that Israel's actions in Gaza could be considered “genocide.”
“Genocide is something else. When a million children are burned to death, you can talk about genocide,” Edith Brooke, 93, said in an interview with an Italian daily. La Repubblica.
Mr Brooke, a Hungarian-born Jew and survivor of Auschwitz, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen, said the bloodshed in Gaza was “a tragedy that concerns us all”, but said Israel would seek to eliminate all Palestinians. He argued that he was not doing so.
That's rather what Hamas “wants to do,” she said, noting that Hamas has said it “wants to wipe out the Jews of the entire world.”
The risk of using the word “genocide'' too easily is that “using it in inappropriate situations diminishes the seriousness of the actual genocide.'' Genocide is something else,” she said.
“The Armenian genocide was a genocide. The one million children who were burned in the ovens of Auschwitz were a genocide, along with the other five million Jews who were also burned in concentration camps,” she said. said.
