The Pope can't call Gaza a genocide. It isn't, insists Bruck - a 93-year old Holocaust survivor.

"Genocide is something else. When a million children are burned to death, then you can talk about genocide" Bruck told Italian media.

What the Pope said about Gaza

The Pope's comments about Gaza came in recently published extracts from a new book devoted to the Jubilee Year of 2025, titled Hope Never Disappoints: Pilgrims Towards a Better World.

"According to some experts, what's happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide" Francis wrote. "Attentive investigation is needed to determine if it fits the technical definition formulated by jurists and international organisms."

Bruck says Francis uses the term genocide "too easily".

Doing so, she said "diminishes the gravity of true genocide… genocide is what happened to the Armenians. Genocide is the million children burned in the ovens of Auschwitz, along with five million other Jews also burned in the concentration camps".

For genocide to be happening, Israel would have to have the extermination of the Palestinian population on its agenda. But while the bloodshed in Gaza is a "tragedy that concerns everyone", extermination is not Israel's intention.

In fact, Hamas is the only party to the conflict that has spoken of genocide and has vowed to destroy the Jewish people throughout the world, she said.

What the Pope should say

In Bruck's view, Francis should be more outspoken against what she called a "tsunami" of anti-Semitism washing across Europe.

"I'd like the Pope to raise his voice on the subject, but I don't hear it the way I would like" she said.

Bruck, who once received Pope Francis in her Rome apartment and later wrote a book about the experience - to which Francis contributed the foreword, said she'd tell him what she thinks when he phones her for her birthday, as he has done since they met.

"I'll tell him that I'd like him to intervene decisively against this hatred that's broken out again against the Jews" she said.

In her recent interview, Bruck said she thinks Francis is afraid of the current rise in anti-Semitism.

She says she's saddened, demoralised, disgusted, scandalised and indignant. "I'm truly living a very ugly moment. Anti-Semitism, like fascism, is never dead. It's millennia old and I believe it will never end".

Holocaust survivor

Bruck is a Hungarian-born Jew. She survived the Auschwitz, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps which swallowed both her parents and an older brother .

Bruck, together with a surviving brother and a sister, was liberated by the Allies at Bergen-Belsen in 1945.

Source

• Crux

Addressing this is essential for maintaining moral credibility, supporting interfaith dialogue, and continuing the path set by Nostra Aetate.

While global attention was focused on the U.S. elections, people continued to die in the most dangerous, horrific war that the Middle East has seen since 1948.

Considering the United States as the center of the issue overlooks the enormity of what is happening to the east of the Mediterranean and the widespread, culpable indifference.

October 7, 2023, is a caesura and periodising date in our history.

There is no possible moral justification for what Hamas did on that day against Israel, a brutal reflection of its appalling commitment to destroying Israel and murdering Jews.

But while Europe and the Western world in general have a well-rehearsed response to antisemitism, their response to what happened after October 7 has been far more problematic.

Either Europe and the Western world do not realize the extent of what is happening to the Palestinian people, or they are in a state of moral and political denial. Or worse.

The behavior of the Israeli government and armed forces is beyond what is morally acceptable and legally permissible.

Israel continues to bomb places that can hardly be said to be a military target or where the proportion between military targets and civilian "collateral damage" goes beyond any understanding of morality and legality.

Civilian victims have become victims twice, thanks to widespread mistrust—or international ignorance—of the news in wartime propaganda. Yet, the reality of what is happening is undeniable.

Navigating religious and political tensions

Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself, and it's hard to fathom what this means from the quiet of the American suburbia where I write this.

However, looking back on it from the start, Israel's action in Gaza cannot be seen solely as a response to October 7.

The ethnic supremacist undertones of Netanyahu and his collaborators had been present long before October 7.

The narrative on the role of religions in world affairs is dominated by extremist positions — in Islam, Judaism, Christianity, not to mention Hinduism and more — that are too often considered the only true ones.

Christians and Catholics, in particular, must walk a very fine line.

There is a significant difference between clearly condemning the Israeli government's specific policies and the violent sentiments held by some Christians and Catholics toward the entire State of Israel, which often extends—implicitly or explicitly—to a broad animosity toward all Jewish people.

Needless to say, this goes back for millennia.

It is striking — and terrifying — to see how some radical-progressive Catholics went from Philo-Semitism in the late 20th century to the risk of seemingly flirting, sometimes unknowingly, with anti-Judaism and antisemitism today.

The pro-Israeli stance of many governments cannot hide the anti-Israeli aversion and sometimes the open antisemitism, especially among those who have not yet renounced political activism.

On the other hand, there is a moral unresponsiveness, even among the most aware and least naïve who acknowledge and defend Catholic-Jewish dialogue as one of the most important fruits of Vatican II and the post-Vatican II period.

Their fear that critique of the State of Israel could morph into new forms of anti-Judaism and antisemitism is real, but no excuse to sit on the sidelines as things progressively escalate.

Historically, the political, cultural, and ecclesiastical elites of countries important for Catholicism, such as France and Italy, have had a different and more intimate relationship with both Muslims and Christians in the Middle East and the Arab world compared to Britain and the United States.

In the last few years, the Catholic perception of the Middle East has been shaped more by the Anglosphere, leading to an undeclared (and occasionally declared) Catholic Zionism.

That often overlooks the heavy toll paid by innocent victims—particularly Muslims, but also Christians and Jews. They are simply "collateral damage."

A call for moral clarity

Now is the time for a moral denunciation of what is happening in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. This is the work of far more than the Holy See.

In fact, it is not clear how much the Holy See can do. Catholics can act in ways the Vatican and the pope cannot.

Liberal-progressive Catholics, especially, are under an obligation to give more explanations than conservative or traditionalist Catholics.

University professors at Catholic universities cannot teach about Dorothy Day, the Berrigan brothers, liberation theology, and not teach about the Middle East today.

They cannot teach how to do theology inter-religiously without talking about what is happening in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.

It is morally impossible to condemn "Christian nationalism" without considering the risks of a theocratic turn in the relations between religion and politics in the State of Israel.

This war is changing interreligious relations in ways that will continue for decades, even for the rest of our lives.

The fact that this is complicated is no excuse and never has been for Catholic understandings of moral culpability.

Forgetting the victims has become one of the most typical moves today—and perhaps the most subtle form of contempt.

The deafening silence of Catholics on this topic carries profound long-term consequences for the relations between the Church and Islam that will endure far longer than the effects of the vote of Arab-American voters in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

To the historical guilt of the European and Western Churches for the Holocaust is now added the guilt toward the Middle East.

Such a burden cannot be alleviated by the clear and pressing need to respond always and everywhere to the return of antisemitism.

The question for Catholics is how to raise their voices so as not to leave the victims of the ongoing war in oblivion. It is simply wrong to expect that only the pope and the Vatican should do it.

Central to the Francis papacy has been a push for a new vision of Global Catholicism. What is happening in the Middle East could turn it into a graveyard of this vision for Global Catholicism, along with many other dreams and lives.

The institutional silence or hesitation of Church leaders and Catholic authorities, both clergy and lay, regarding Gaza and Lebanon in Europe and the broader West aligns with the prevailing interpretation in the Anglosphere and translates into a strong push for the re-Westernization of Catholicism.

The turn towards a more global Church, requiring a break from the Anglosphere and attention to a diverse and local-global dialogical Catholic self-understanding, cannot be reduced to something like a "diversity, equity, and inclusion" corporate programme.

Global Catholicism is not about recruiting more diverse personnel. It is about diverse understandings, ones that truly reflect global realities and not simply power plays or historical amnesia.

This is not the time for an ersatz orientalist nostalgia for the status of Christians under the Ottoman Empire or in the post-World War I "mandate system."

As Christians and Catholics, we cannot ignore or overlook what is happening in the Middle East, especially the catastrophe facing the Palestinian people.

Of course, the caution of Catholics in taking a stand on the conflict in the Middle East must be understood in light of their role in the history of antisemitism up to the Holocaust.

Within the Western world, Christians carry a heavy responsibility. The most conscientious quarters know that antisemitism is alive and well and must be fought tooth and nail.

But keeping the legacy of Nostra Aetate and continuing that path will be much more difficult, or impossible, should Catholic voices fail to recognise that the post-October 7 war in the Middle East is one of the signs of our times that we need to read in light of the Gospel.

• First published in La Croix
• Massimo Faggioli is an Italian academic, Church historian, professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University, columnist for La Croix International, and contributing writer to Commonweal.

The pope's remarks are prominently featured in his new book "Hope Never Disappoints. Pilgrims Towards a Better World", which is set for release ahead of the 2025 Jubilee Year.

"According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of genocide" he wrote in extracts published on Sunday in Italy's La Stampa daily.

"This should be studied carefully to determine whether (the situation) corresponds to the technical definition formulated by jurists and international organisations."

The pontiff highlights the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where Palestinians face starvation and a blockade on essential aid. Writing about the broader Middle East, he emphasises the plight of those fleeing conflict, particularly from Gaza, which he describes as suffering "famine" and systematic deprivation.

Pope Francis is usually careful not to take sides in international conflicts and prefers to talk of de-escalation. But he has stepped up his criticism of Israel's conduct in its war against Hamas recently.

Humanitarian ruin

The publication of the pope's remarks came soon after the UN said Israel's actions were "consistent with characteristics of genocide".

The UN report states that Israel has systematically deprived Gaza's population of life-sustaining resources like food, water and fuel, using starvation as a weapon of war. It also cites the dropping of over 25,000 tonnes of explosives, leaving the region in environmental and humanitarian ruin.

"By destroying vital water, sanitation and food systems, and contaminating the environment, Israel has created a lethal mix of crises that will inflict severe harm on generations to come" the Committee warned.

Israel says accusations of genocide in its Gaza campaign are baseless. It says it is solely hunting down Hamas and other armed groups.

"There was a genocidal massacre on 7 October 2023 of Israeli citizens and, since then, Israel has exercised its right of self-defence against attempts from seven different fronts to kill its citizens" said Yaron Sideman, ambassador to the Holy See.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis met 16 Israelis including former hostages and family members at the Vatican on 14 November. A few members held posters with the faces and names of men still in captivity. It is estimated that 97 of the 251 abducted on October 7 are still in Gaza. According to the Israeli Defence Forces, 34 of the 97 are confirmed dead.

Sources

Palestine Chronicle

Reuters

Our Sunday Visitor

CathNews New Zealand

The claim is made by Barry Coates, chief executive of Mindful Money.

Coates told Stuff's Esther Taunton that most people do not want to invest in weapons, but KiwiSaver providers do not tell them where their money is directed.

He said that more than $60 million is invested in companies that supply weapons or parts used by the Israeli military.

Research by Mindful Money shows that around $9.3 million of KiwiSaver funds is invested in Boeing, the largest supplier of weapons to Israel.

Boeing supplies missile guidance systems as well as bombs and aircraft to Israel.

Coates says that $9.6 million is invested in Rolls-Royce Holdings which makes engines for Israeli tanks, and $8.1 million in Honeywell which makes components for missiles and drones.

"Where your money is invested has consequences ‒ for people, for workers, for the environment, for climate change."

Coates says that Mindful Money's annual surveys show Kiwi investors want to avoid weapons, human rights violations, animal cruelty, fossil fuels, and social harm from tobacco, alcohol and gambling.

"More KiwiSaver and investment fund managers are saying they are ethical, sustainable or using ESG [environmental, social, and governance] policies" says Coates.

"But the objective test is where they invest our money.

"Investing in weapons companies that profiteer from unjust wars is deeply offensive to most Kiwis."

Coates says that with the availability of more ethical investment options in the last five years, Mindful Money's research shows a huge change in investing choices.

Source

• Stuff

Father Gabriel Romanelli took advantage of Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa's visit to the area last week to return to Gaza from Israel.

"I am in the parish and will stay here."

One day turns into over 33 weeks

Romanelli left the Gaza Strip on 6 October last year for an overnight trip.

That overnight stay stretched on and on as Hamas - the Islamist group that rules Gaza - attacked Israel on 7 October.

Meanwhile the Church of the Holy Family has housed around 600 displaced Christians.

There are still 500 Christians sheltering in the parish compound, as well as the Sisters of Mother teresa.

The Sisters are also helping the neighbouring Muslims.

Serenity and suffering

Romanelli found an unexpected quality among the refugees in the church compound.

"The situation is paradoxical - there is serenity among many of our parishioners" he said.

"Despite the truly enormous suffering, they remain serene and place themselves in the hands of the Lord.

"Of course, they are very concerned about what will happen. Some are sick, some are injured, many have left and some are thinking of leaving but many, many, many are thinking of staying."

No to war, no to weaponry

English Catholic international aid agency CAFOD is working for peace.

It says its supporters have contacted 95 percent of members of parliament "to support efforts to restoring peace in Gaza by not granting any more licences to export arms and other military equipment to Israel."

Aisha Dodwell, Head of Campaigns at CAFOD, said the effort supporters made in this way "is a testament to the distress that Catholic constituents feel about this issue.

"Stopping arms sales is crucial to preventing a total catastrophe in Rafah and ending the suffering in Gaza.

"This must happen alongside continued calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages and the unimpeded provision of aid to all those who need it" she says.

"Our supporters are sending a clear message to the Government that the UK must reconsider its position on arms sales to Israel especially in light of serious allegations of human rights abuses.

"As Pope Francis has said, ‘To say ‘no' to war means saying ‘no' to weaponry'."

Source

• Crux

"Ethical export policy is a myth," states the WPF.

Of the 32 wars of this century that the WPF analyzed all of them but one received weapons from the leading arms exporting nations - U.S., Russia, France, U.K., China, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Ukraine, and Spain - even when serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights abuses were clearly on display.

U.S. weapons to the Israeli government's ongoing bombing of civilians in Gaza is current tragic example.

Rivers of mostly innocent civilian blood doesn't deter the ongoing shipments of instruments of death.

Where there's a huge profit to be made, and power to be gained, any serious consideration of morality is virtually nonexistent among the arms exporting countries.

And to a lesser degree it is important to note that some less affluent nations are also involved in the deadly arms business.

Corporations that are profiting the most from the immoral business of weapons production and sales are the U.S. companies Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, BAE Systems (U.K.), Norinco (China), AVIC (China).

If weapons production, and subsequent weapons sales were to end, wars and armed conflicts would virtually come to a halt. Wars can't be waged without weapons.

And think of all the good that could be done, both domestically and globally, if we ever come to our senses and transfer the vast amounts of money spent on weapons of war to building instruments of peace.

Imagine seeing all of that money being used to ensure that every single person on the planet would receive basic human services like adequate food, decent housing, clean water and sanitation, health care, education, life-enhancing jobs with a living wage.

And with these huge funds we could totally and quickly move from dirty fossil fuels to clean energy for our health, the health of our common earth home, and the health of future generations yet to born.

But very sadly, this wonderful scenario is not on the radar screens of the vast majority of rich and powerful individuals, corporations and nations.

At the Second Vatican Council the world's Catholic bishops, in union with S. Pope Paul VI declared:

"While extravagant sums are being spent for the furnishing of ever new weapons, an adequate remedy cannot be provided for the multiple miseries afflicting the whole modern world.

"Disagreements between nations are not really and radically healed; on the contrary, they spread infection to other parts of the earth.

"New approaches based on reformed attitudes must be taken to remove this trap and to emancipate the world from its crushing anxiety through the restoration of genuine peace.

"Therefore, we say it again: the arms race is an utterly treacherous trap for humanity, and one which ensnares the poor to an intolerable degree."

As dioceses, parishes and individuals we need to tirelessly urge national leaders to finally move away from war preparation and warmaking to nonviolent peacemaking.

It is bread, and not bombs, that humanity is hungry for.

Catholics, other Christians, and all people of faith in the God of peace who are in anyway connected with the arms industry should seriously pray and think about leaving the business of making weapons.

It is truly the morally right thing to do.

Better to have far less money and more peace of soul. With an open heart and mind please prayerfully consider this powerful Pope Francis video.

https://youtu.be/hUtxTvdSF_4?si=P7NIEDuGxq71iKUM

In the actual words of one of the Catholic Church's greatest champions of nonviolence and peace, St Francis of Assisi, let us greet everyone with "Pace e Bene" (Peace and all good)!

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at parish and diocesan venues. To invite Tony, contact him at tmag6@comcast.net.

And what has been the overall response to all of this genocidal carnage? For the most part: Silence. Ongoing deadly silence!

The deadly terrorist attacks of Hamas killing 1,200 Jews - including 33 Israeli children - was indeed a very sad tragedy, but the ongoing six-month Israeli military offensive against all Palestinians in Gaza - including Palestinian Christians - amounts to collective punishment which is forbidden by international law. And is nothing short of genocide!

Pope Francis prophetically said: "I will never tire of reiterating my call, addressed in particular to those who have political responsibility: ‘stop the bombs and missiles now, end hostile stances [everywhere]!'"

• So then why all of the silence from our US Catholic Church pulpits?
• Why is the Catholic press so timid here?
• Why are corporate board members not deciding to end the support of arms to Israel?
• Why are company stockholders not demanding an end to corporate support of the Israeli genocide? And why has the U.S. Congress recently voted to hand over to Israel $26 billion in military weaponry to keep fueling the flames of genocide in Gaza?

Why is there so little moral outrage?

It's like so many of the other atrocities being suffered by the poor and vulnerable - that is, a lack of interest among well-off and safe corporations, governments, and individuals who lack genuine compassionate care, and the moral courage to stand up and declare: Enough! Enough of all this evil!

Well, not so with many college students, and in some cases, faculties together with them, on dozens of U.S. university campuses standing up and declaring enough of all this evil!

They are doing what every person of good will - especially followers of the nonviolent Jesus - should be doing, namely: protesting against violence, injustice, complicity with evil, and genocide.

Protests that started at Columbia University in New York City have spread to many colleges and universities across the U.S. and in other countries.

Contrary to critics who claim the students are violent, the truth is that student demonstrators are overwhelmingly nonviolent in the face of unwarranted police arrests and hostile university administrations.

Yet, a favorite tactic of those pushing for more U.S. bombs for Israel to drop on Palestinian women and children is to brand the nonviolent students and as "anti-Semitic."

That charge is a smokescreen designed to coverup the genocide, and project a false guilt upon the morally courageous protesting students - some of whom are now facing suspension and even expulsion.

In fact, Jewish Voice for Peace has stated its full support for the college protestors.

All of this is reminiscent of the 1960's and early 1970's student protests against the U.S. war in Vietnam. Back then the protesting students were called "communist sympathizers."

I stand with the student and faculty protestors mainly because their demands are consistent with the nonviolent Gospel of Jesus Christ and Catholic social teaching which insists upon peacemaking and social justice for all.

Student protestors are justly calling for an end to arms shipments to Israel, a permanent cease-fire, and university divestment of funds from companies that support the Israeli government's merciless war against the Palestinians.

Encouragingly, in the 1980's Columbia University students successfully pressured the university to divest from the apartheid regime that was in control of South Africa.

Most appropriately, let us remember and live the words of the late Jewish Nazi concentration camp survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel:

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.

Now, it seems that Israel is beginning its last phase of conquest, after ordering a million and a half people to take refuge in Rafah, a border town with Egypt.

Soon, there may be almost no one left in the rest of Gaza.

There have been several wars in Gaza, but this time there are thousands of human victims, and ruins like never before, and peace does not seem to be near.

More than suffering, more than the loss of men and women, children and babies, humanity is lost.

Making war

Why this new war?

The immediate cause is the horrific Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

But another direct cause is the permanent siege imposed upon all Gazan territory in 2007, when the Hamas political party became the governing authority of the enclave.

Since then, the entire territory—2.5 million people over an area of 141 square miles​​—has been under total military siege imposed by Israel and Egypt.

And since Oct. 7, Israel's military operations have limited even the most necessary humanitarian aid for Gaza, to the point that it now stands on the cusp of famine.

The real cause is the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, begun in 1948, which no peace agreement has been able to end and which the international community seems to have neglected.

Under Israeli military occupation, Gaza — and all of Palestine — has suffered thousands of deaths, thousands more taken as political prisoners, demolished houses, military checkpoints on all roads that disrupt freedom of movement and daily life, and a paralysed, dependent Palestinian economy.

In short, we are in a permanent state of war.

This is the root cause of all wars in Gaza, including the one following Oct. 7.

And despite the useless, inhuman violence of the present war, more will come if a just and lasting peace is not reached between the two peoples.

The war must stop without further delay because it is no longer a war. It is a massacre.

But what comes after the war?

Making peace

Israel, as the occupier of Gaza, must take responsibility for seeking a sustainable peace with equal justice for all.

Otherwise, we will see an unnecessary defeat for all. It is time for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be put back on the international agenda and for the global community to take responsibility for building peace, which has seemed impossible until today.

Peace means the security of Israel and, at the same time, the security of the Palestinian people.

In fact, the fundamental question that arises today is: Do the Palestinian people have the right to stay at home, on their own land, in their own towns and villages?

To this question, the current government in Israel has said no.

Instead, Israel has been trying to forcibly displace the Palestinian people, making it virtually impossible for them to live a normal, humane life and raise their families on their own land.

That cannot be a path to peace or security for anyone.

To achieve peace, we must simply admit that even in this conflict, human beings are equal. Israelis and Palestinians are equally created by God, in the image of God, and are capable of loving as opposed to killing.

On this holy land, there is room for both peoples to exercise the same political rights: two states, each at home, independent, free and capable of resisting a return to war.

We have experienced war for decades; we now need a new way of thinking that brings about a lasting peace.

The peacemakers

Who is responsible for building this peace?

First, the two peoples themselves, Israeli and Palestinian.

Then, the international community, the friends of Israel and Palestine.

The true friends of Israel are those who help Israel achieve peace.

Making Israel militarily stronger, to win wars but remain insecure, is not friendship or true help to Israel.

One can ask the question: Are the two peoples capable of living in peace, each in their own state?

Why not?

There is much suffering and injustice in living memory, that is true.

But there is also the will to live and the fundamental goodness that God has placed in everyone.

God created the human being capable of life rather than death, love rather than killing.

The surest path to peace is direct engagement with the enemy, especially when two enemies share the same land. A sustainable peace cannot be brokered by outside forces. Read more

• Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah (pictured) served as the archbishop and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1987 to 2008, the first native Palestinian to hold the office for centuries.
• Editor's note: "America," the original publisher of this piece, is committed to publishing diverse views on the pressing issues of our time. For additional perspectives on the war in Gaza, read "There Is a Right and Wrong Way for Catholics to Criticize Israel," by Karma Ben Johanan, and Gerard O'Connell's interview with David Neuhaus, S.J.

It's extremely serious says the Palestinian city's only Catholic priest, Father Gabriel Romanelli (pictured).

Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) reports agree.

"Our people are constantly suffering. Every time both sides talk about a truce, the intensity of military operations increases" reports an ACN partner (who has aked for anonymity).

Refuge under fire

For the past fortnight Gaza's Holy Family parish has suffered intense military clashes and shelling.

The displaced Christian community has been living within the parish compound since the conflict began.

The 512-strong mainly Catholic and Orthodox group has "been living a Calvary without respite for months" Romanelli says.

"The other day my vicar, who is inside Gaza, told me "You can't imagine the pain we are feeling and the desperation of the people".

Yet they "still have faith and hope in the essential - in Jesus Christ".

Praying and caring for one another are two constants in the besieged Christian community.

There's daily Mass, catechesis sessions and the rosary. There are activities for children and meetings for trauma healing through prayer.

Basics lacking

Clean water and food are at a premium, ACN's partner says.

Dirty water is used for toilets and sanitary units, and water is being purified using traditional methods.

Food is "very, very limited" and the problem has nothing to do with the availability of cash.

"It is simply that food is scarce, and it is difficult to find anywhere to buy it."

Internationally-provided humanitarian aid didn't arrive in the parish.

"However, some faithful managed to find flour and the bakery started producing bread again ... a great blessing for our displaced people" Romanelli says.

Many charities are trying to help.

The Latin Patriarchate is able to provide everyone with two meals a week and a loaf of bread every two days.

On other days, Gaza's Christian community has to eke out their supplies or forage for themselves.

People walk for long hours to get a small box of food, which in the end is not enough for three people.

"Sharing is part of daily life and their new Christian identity" ACN's project partner says.

Disease

Poor sanitation is another concern.

Children have a virus causing nausea and diarrhoea. Four elderly people are seriously ill and need hospitalisation - an impossibility at present.

The war has created an "objectively intolerable situation" says Jerusalem's Latin Patriarch.

"We have always had many problems of all kinds, even the economic-financial situation has always been very fragile, but the famine has never been there.

"Everyone - religious, political and social communities - they must do everything possible to break this situation."

Easter

Faith is something that encourages Gaza's Christian community, says ACN's project partner.

"With God's grace, our children are now even closer to their faith than ever before. It is a very special Easter, we are closer than ever to the crucified Saviour.

"Pray for us, pray for the whole population, that this war might end."

Source

• ACN International
• Crux

The agencies working in the area are warning that starvation and famine threaten hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

Catastrophic conditions in Gaza

In a joint statement, the Caritas agencies of the three countries say the situation in Gaza is rapidly worsening. Over 31,300 people have been killed and 73,100 injured in the conflict so far.

"Starvation has become a very real danger.

"Already 27 people, including 23 children, have died of malnutrition and about half a million people are facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity" the Caritas agencies say.

Pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need adds urgency and strength to Caritas's alarm.

The people "are closer than ever to the crucified Saviour" stresses Aid to the Church in Need.

In its most recent report it says the Christian community in Gaza "is going through the worst period" since the start of the war on 7 October 2023.

Sr Nabila Saleh of the Holy Family parish in Al Zeyton calls the situation distressing.

The church is currently sheltering 128 families — a total of 512 Christians, Catholics and Orthodox. Among the families are 120 children under the age of 18. Sixty people have disabilities. There are also 84 elderly people.

Demands for humanitarian access

The Caritas groups are urging "all diplomatic, political, legal and economic means possible" to establish guaranteed humanitarian corridors into Gaza. These corridors are vital links as they ensure safe passage for food, water and other supplies.

Caritas has rejected proposals for airdrops or maritime deliveries as "undignified" and "neither viable nor sustainable".

"A single truck can deliver up to 10 times as much aid as an airdrop" its statement says.

It then quotes the World Food Programme's deputy executive director, saying "Airdrops are a last resort and will not avert famine. We need entry points to northern Gaza".

Australia urged to follow Canada and New Zealand

The agencies have called on Australia to restore funding to UNRWA, the UN agency aiding Palestinian refugees. This would put it in line with Canadian and New Zealand policies.

"As the people of Gaza mark the holy periods of Lent and Ramadan, we call on our prime ministers to act on their conviction 'that a sustainable ceasefire is necessary to finding a path towards securing lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians'," they say.

Ceasefire and Prisoner Release Demanded

Among other urgent demands, the Caritas agencies called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire by all parties, They are also calling for all hostages and people whom Hamas and Israeli authorities have arbitrarily detained to be released.

The joint statement from the aid agencies followed grave warnings last month by the prime ministers of Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

These warnings focused on indications Israel was planning a ground offensive into Rafah, which they said would be "catastrophic".

A month on, the Catholic aid agencies say they are "disturbed to note that Israel is not heeding their call to 'listen to the international community'".

Sources

• Supplied
• CNA

All are welcome to the service, which will take place via Zoom on Monday, 27th November, from 4:30 to 5:00 pm AEDT.

The service will be led by Michael McGirr, Mission Facilitator at Caritas Australia, with guest speakers contributing prayers.

Michael McGirr said of the service, "In a time of deep sorrow and anguish for us all, we look for hope and healing. Let us come together in love, prayer, and support. Let us acknowledge the reality that impacts us all as we share messages of hope."

Read More

In a joint statement, Bishops from New Zealand's two biggest Christian Churches - Catholic and Anglican - are begging the warring factions in the Holy Land to stop.

Stop the war with the accompanying acts of violence it executes, the bishops' joint statement says.

Let it go. Release hostages. Stop fighting.

Everyone's saying stop the war!

The bishops' words join the international community's pleas for peace.

It's a sentiment Pope Francis applauds.

"Brothers, stop! Stop!" he said to thousands waiting to hear his Angelus message in St Peter's square on Sunday.

"War is always a defeat. Hamas must free Israeli hostages and all sides must allow humanitarian aid to reach the people of Gaza."

Later in the day, Francis phoned US President Joe Biden to discuss various conflicts and the need to identify paths toward peace, the Holy See Press Office says.

Then during his Angelus message on Wednesday, and for the 6th time, Francis called for a stop to the Isreal-Hamas war.

Violence doesn't work

"Hospitals and civilian infrastructure are protected under International Humanitarian Law," Anglican Archbishop Phillip Richardson says in the joint statement.

"Such niceties of law did not protect the wounded in Al Ahli Anglican Hospital and the people who were seeking sanctuary and protection. There are no winners in war: so often, it is innocent people who are maimed and killed."

The conflict between Israel and Palestine is a wound that has continued to fester... diplomatic efforts ... have failed because of the unwillingness to honour international agreements.

"Violence will never be a solution."

Blessed be the peacemakers

Bishop Steve Lowe, President of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference, spoke of peace.

"As Bishops, we endorse ... those groups and institutions in Israel and Palestine who work for peace, justice and reconciliation.

"Such work recognises our common humanity. This is the path that we advocate for peace in the Holy Land."

Government and diplomatic authorities must advocate for an immediate ceasefire and the opening and ongoing safeguarding of humanitarian corridors, the bishops' joint statement says.

"In this very emotional time, we cannot let anger lead us into antisemitism or Islamophobia.

"Let us remember that there are innocent victims on both sides of the conflict. To our fellow interfaith religious leaders, we ask: ‘Let us unite in prayer and action for a lasting peace.

"To the people of Aotearoa New Zealand, we urge you to pray for peace and to support aid appeals for those impacted by this humanitarian crisis."

The statement then quotes parts of Psalm 130 which begs: "Out of the depths I cry to you O Lord; hear my voice. O let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleading."

In conclusion the bishops say: "May we too be attentive to those who call out to us from the depths of despair and destruction.

"May we commit ourselves to being instruments of peace."

• NZ Catholic Bishops Conference
• La Croix
• Vatican News
• America Magazine

Pope Francis' representative in the Holy Land, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, made the comment on Monday during a video conference.

Child hostages

About 12 children are among the 200 or so Israeli people Hamas took hostage on 7 October.

A further 1,300 people reportedly died in the Hamas attack.

Pizzabella is particularly concerned for the children.

"I am ready for an exchange, anything, if this can lead to freedom, to bring the children home," Pizzaballa said in response to journalists' questions during the video conference.

"No problem. There is total willingness on my part.

"The first thing to do is to try to win the release of the hostages, otherwise there will be no way of stopping [an escalation]. We are willing to help, even me personally."

Pizzaballa also noted that his office had not had any direct contact with militant Islamist group Hamas.

"You can't talk to Hamas. It is very difficult," he said.

In Gaza

Diplomatic efforts are ramping up to get aid into Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel is preparing a ground invasion to destroy Hamas, Reuters reports.

On Monday Gaza authorities were reported as saying Israeli strikes had killed at least 2,750 people.

A quarter of the dead were children.

In addition, Gaza authorities say about 10,000 people were wounded during the strikes. Besides these, a further 1,000 people have been listed as missing, believed buried under rubble.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa

Jerusalem's Catholic Patriarch - whose role includes overseeing Catholic activities in Israel and the Palestinian territories - says about 1,000 Christians were sheltering in Church buildings in northern Gaza.

Their homes were destroyed in Israeli strikes, he told reporters during Monday's video conference .

"They don't know where to go because moving is dangerous," Pizzaballa said.

Israel has urged exhausted Gazans to evacuate to the south. Hundreds of thousands have already moved to the enclave that is home to more than 2 million people.

Hamas, which runs Gaza, has told people to ignore Israel's message.

Source

• Reuters

Smoke erupts
from shattered
Buildings hanging
through the orange
glow of flame.

This narrow strip
of sea-edged land
littered streets
torn metal, broken
brick, shattered

tiles, lifeless forms.
Costly retribution for
a savage act, lost
lives, wailing cries
and threat of siege.

This land of youth
broken piece by piece.
Christ-caught in the
shadow of the cross.
A gale of destruction

sweeps the land
leaving a trail of
hollow hope amid
fading distant dreams
and worn-out words.

What next? and when?

• Chris McDonnell is from England. A regular contributor to La Croix International, and contributes occasionally to CathNews NZ.

"My thoughts turn to the events taking place these days in the Holy Land," Francis said, referring to the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

"I thank God for the decision to halt the armed conflicts and acts of violence, and I pray for the pursuit of paths of dialogue and peace."

He asked Catholics to pray for dialogue, forgiveness and peaceful coexistence in the Holy Land.

"May every community pray to the Holy Spirit ‘that Israelis and Palestinians may find the path of dialogue and forgiveness, be patient builders of peace and justice, and be open, step by step, to a common hope, to coexistence among brothers and sisters,'" he said, quoting remarks he made on 16th May.

The pope also noted that on Saturday, Catholic bishops of the Holy Land together with the faithful celebrate the Vigil of Pentecost in Saint Stephen's Church in Jerusalem and implore the gift of peace.

"I take this occasion to ask all the pastors and faithful of the Catholic Church to unite themselves spiritually with this prayer," he said, asking for every Catholic community to pray so that "Israelis and Palestinians may find the path of dialogue and forgiveness, be patient builders of peace and justice, and be open, step by step, to a common hope, to coexistence among brothers and sisters."

Francis made the comments while addressing the ambassadors from Singapore, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Algeria, Sri Lanka, Barbados, Sweden, Finland, and Nepal, who were presenting letters of accreditation.

During his address, Francis highlighted the role of diplomats in forging a global consensus, and he said the Holy See "supports every effort to build a world in which the human person is at the centre, finance is at the service of an integral development, and the earth, our common home, is protected and cared for."

Sources

• Crux
• Catholic Universe

"It is very terrible; from (today) 5 a.m. in the morning (there has been bombing) behind our school and in our school," Sister Nabila Saleh, principal of the school, told Catholic News Service in a WhatsApp call May 12.

Bombs could be heard exploding in the background and, audibly distraught, Sister Saleh was unable to continue with the interview.

Because of COVID-19 and Ramadan, the school has been closed since mid-April, and only in early May was the COVID-19 lockdown lifted in Gaza.

Father Gabriel Romanelli of Holy Family Parish in Gaza told CNS May 12 that, in two days, 45 people, including 14 children and three women, had been killed in Gaza.

Three hundred people have been wounded, he said.

Father Romanelli said he had left the parish compound early in the morning to make the 10-minute drive to the Rosary Sisters to assess the damage and celebrate Mass with them but was unable to leave for eight hours because of the incessant bombing around the area, where many government buildings are located.

As soon as he returned to the parish, the sisters told him the bombing had begun again.

The tiny Catholic community in Gaza consists of 133 people — including a baby born in early May.

Fewer than 1,100 Christians live in Gaza among the 2 million Muslim Palestinians. Many of the students at the Rosary Sisters school are Muslim.

Father Romanelli said the priests and religious have been staying in close contact with their parishioners through phone calls, the internet and WhatsApp.

Unfortunately, he said, they "are very used to war."

"The situation is very bad. We try to give our parishioners encouragement and ask them to keep serene and in peace, to find joy in the sorrow.

"We send them uplifting messages to live with patience and charity in life," the priest said.

"There are moments of anxiety … people are closed in, night and day, with the bombings. The bombings affect everything — breathing, nerves, violence. There is a feeling of impotence and sometimes that brings on violence. But the people here are good and patient."

The apartment of one parish family was damaged; windows were blown out, debris was scattered throughout the apartment and a huge crater was in front of their building, Father Romanelli said.

He said the parish was organizing to see how it could help the family — a couple and their son — with any spiritual and material needs they might have.

He said the priests offered to let the family sleep at the parish, but the family decided to stay in their home and cover their windows with plastic until they can be repaired.

Children are developing behavioural problems, Father Romanelli said.

"War is trauma, and if only one explosion can change a life, you can imagine this morning we had dozens of explosions. It is something that can break a wall; think of a child and how fragile they are," he said. "It will affect their hearts, their nerves, their eyes. It affects human beings. It is not just the moment of the attack, but it is the consequences that remain."

While prayer is important, Father Romanelli said there must be work toward justice for there to be real peace. Continue reading

• Judith Sudilovsky

Palestinian Orthodox Christians limited their celebrations on Palm Sunday, restricting the occasion to religious rituals to mourn the deaths of 17 Gazans killed in a protest.

The deadly "Land Day" demonstration at the Israeli border on March 30 also left 1,400 people wounded. Read more

Mohammad El Halabi (photographed above) was arrested by Israel on June 15 while crossing the border into Gaza, World Vision said in a statement. He was charged by Israeli authorities on Thursday.

He had run the organization's Gaza operations since 2010.

According to Israel's Shin Bet security service, El Halabi diverted around $7.2 million of World Vision money to Hamas each year. That is the equivalent of 60 percent of the charity's total annual funding for Gaza.

Some 40 percent of the funds aimed at civilian projects — some $1.5 million a year — were "given in cash" to Hamas combat units, according to a statement issued by the Shin Bet.

Some of the money raised to support injured children in the enclave had been diverted to Hamas families by "fraudulently listing their children as wounded," according to the agency.

"Money designated for psychological support, education and health in Gaza ... was used to pay the families of Hamas terrorists," it added.

A lawyer appointed by World Vision to represent El Halabi told NBC News that his client denied the charges against him.

"He told me he never, ever transferred any money to Hamas and he has never been a Hamas member," Muhamad Mahmud said.

Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai called the case a "grave incident."

He called on World Vision — which has operated in Gaza, Israel and the West Bank since 1975 — to "assume responsibility and set your house in order."

Australia and Germany have suspended funding to the World Vision Evangelical Christian humanitarian aid group in response to Israeli allegations that its Gaza office had siphoned $7.2 million a year to Hamas.

Source

• The Jerusalem Post
• NBC News
• Image: Israelseen.com

Caritas Internationalis president Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga told a Rome conference on Monday that there are 13 million Syrians in desperate need.

More than four million Iraqis and Syrians are refugees in their own countries, he said.

Gaza has seen 10,000 homes and 70 per cent of its factories destroyed this summer, the cardinal added.

"As part of the humanitarian community, we are confronted with the greatest crisis the world has faced since the Second World War," he said.

Cardinal Maradiaga urged governments to seek a negotiated solution to the conflicts rather than a military one.

He also called for the end of the Israeli blockade of Gaza and a return to the borders recognised in 1967.

He said countries beyond Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey should accept their "fair share" of refugees from Syria and Iraq.

The cardinal said that governments "must agree to a total cessation of arms transfers to the Middle East countries engulfed by conflict," noting that some countries providing arms were even members of the UN Security Council.

Continue reading

Newspapers this summer have been full of little else.

Television viewers see heaps of rubble and plumes of smoke in their sleep.

A representative article from a recent issue of The New Yorker described the summer's events by dedicating one sentence each to the horrors in Nigeria and Ukraine, four sentences to the crazed génocidaires of ISIS, and the rest of the article—30 sentences—to Israel and Gaza.

When the hysteria abates, I believe the events in Gaza will not be remembered by the world as particularly important.

People were killed, most of them Palestinians, including many unarmed innocents.

I wish I could say the tragedy of their deaths, or the deaths of Israel's soldiers, will change something, that they mark a turning point.

But they don't.

This round was not the first in the Arab wars with Israel and will not be the last.

The Israeli campaign was little different in its execution from any other waged by a Western army against a similar enemy in recent years, except for the more immediate nature of the threat to a country's own population, and the greater exertions, however futile, to avoid civilian deaths.

The lasting importance of this summer's war, I believe, doesn't lie in the war itself.

It lies instead in the way the war has been described and responded to abroad, and the way this has laid bare the resurgence of an old, twisted pattern of thought and its migration from the margins to the mainstream of Western discourse—namely, a hostile obsession with Jews.

The key to understanding this resurgence is not to be found among jihadi webmasters, basement conspiracy theorists, or radical activists.

It is instead to be found first among the educated and respectable people who populate the international news industry; decent people, many of them, and some of them my former colleagues. Continue reading

Source

• Mattie Friedman in Tablet

Matti Friedman's work as a reporter has taken him to Lebanon, Morocco, Egypt, Moscow, and Washington, DC, and to conflicts in Israel and the Caucasus.