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Pope Francis on Saturday condemned the “cruelty” of an Israeli airstrike, which killed seven children in Gaza, according to the Civil Defense of the Palestinian territory. A “blacklisting” denounced by Israel which accuses the pope of “double standards”.
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December 22, 2024 – 02:42
(Keystone-ATS) “Yesterday, children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war. I want to say it because it touches my heart,” Pope Francis said in front of members of the government of the Holy See.
The spokesperson for the Civil Defense of the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Bassal, had denounced the day before to AFP “a massacre of the (Israeli) occupation” having “made ten martyrs within the Khalla family, targeted by an airstrike on his home in Jabalia, near Gaza City.
All the people killed “are from the same family, including seven children, the oldest being six years old,” he said, reporting 15 injured. Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army affirmed that the report communicated by Civil Defense in Gaza “does not agree with the information in (its) possession”.
“Cruelty”
Israeli forces “struck several terrorists who were operating in a military structure” of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and “represented a threat,” she assured. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted to the pope's remarks and denounced the remarks “particularly disappointing because they are disconnected from the real and factual context of Israel's fight against jihadist terrorism”, according to a press release.
“Criticism should only be directed at the terrorists, not at the democracy that defends itself against them. We must put an end to double standards, and the blacklisting of the Jewish state and its people,” added the ministry. While the pope deplored “the cruelty” of the bombings, Israeli diplomacy retorted that “the cruelty is the terrorists who hide behind children while trying to murder Israeli children.”
“The cruelty is the terrorists who keep 100 people hostage for 442 days, including a baby and children, and mistreat them,” she insisted. “Unfortunately, the pope has decided to ignore all of this.” Pope Francis, 88, has been calling for peace since Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 and the Israeli retaliatory campaign in Gaza. In recent weeks, he has toughened his remarks against the Israeli offensive.
Recognized State of Palestine
At the end of November, he affirmed that “the arrogance of the invader (…) prevails over dialogue” in “Palestine”, a rare position which contrasts with the tradition of neutrality of the Holy See. In extracts published in November from a forthcoming book, he called for a “careful” study to determine whether the situation in Gaza “fits the technical definition” of genocide, a charge Israel strongly rejects.
The Holy See supports the so-called two-state solution, Israeli and Palestinian, and has recognized the State of Palestine since 2013, with which it maintains diplomatic relations. The war in Gaza was triggered by the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures. and including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
More than 45,000 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli military campaign of retaliation in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to data from the Hamas government's Ministry of Health, deemed reliable by the UN.
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