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Speaking of genocide in the context of the Israeli army’s treatment of people living in the Gaza Strip is “disgraceful” says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He slammed the Pope’s call last week for the global community to study whether Israel’s military campaign in Gaza constituted genocide of the Palestinian people.
The G word
The Pope’s views are included in his new book “Hope Never Disappoints. Pilgrims Towards a Better World”.
It it, he says “according to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of genocide”. This statement and other extracts were published on Sunday in Italy’s La Stampa daily newspaper.
The book is scheduled to be published today.
As Francis has often expressed disquiet over the Israel-Palestine war and the impact of its victims, it’s perhaps to be expected that his book would include comments such as these.
He has often given his views about the Israel-Palestine war, so his forthright comments in the book are not surprising.
In September for example, he said “Israel’s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon are immoral and disproportionate”, adding that the Israeli army had gone beyond the rules of war.
Some sorry facts
The Israeli occupation army aggression against the besieged Gaza Strip has wrought immense destruction:
- Some 148,000 Palestinian people are dead or wounded
- Most victims are children and women
- There are over 10,000 missing people
- Famine has killed dozens of children and elderly people
The Middle East Monitor says the situation in Gaza is being described as one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
Netanyahu charged with war crimes
The Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin supported the Pope’s comments about Gaza.
While he was at the Pope’s book launch, Parolin told media “The Pope has expressed the position of the Holy See, which is that these matters must be thoroughly studied because there are technical criteria for defining the concept of genocide”.
He did not comment about the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on charges of war crimes in Gaza.
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