Pope Francis on Saturday condemned the bombing of children in the Gaza Strip as cruelty, a day after the Palestinian Authority announced that seven children from one family had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency. The Palestinian Authority for Civil Defense said on Friday that ten members of one family, including seven children, were the victims of an Israeli airstrike in the north of the enclave.
“Yesterday they didn’t let the (Jerusalem) patriarch into the Gaza Strip as they promised. Yesterday they bombed the children. This is cruelty, this is not war,” said the head of the Catholic Church. “I want to say this because it touches me,” added Pope Francis.
The Israeli military claims that in the attack hit “several terrorists operating in the military structure belonging to the terrorist organization Hamas, who posed a threat to Israeli troops operating in the area,” writes AFP. The military also disputed the Palestinian Authority’s death toll figures and added that the number does not match the information of the army.
Since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip, which broke out after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Pope has called for peace several times. In recent weeks, according to AFP, he has hardened his statements against the Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave, which has claimed 45,206 victims in more than 14 months. At the end of November Francis said the “arrogance of the attacker…prevails over the dialogue in Palestine,” which AFP called a rare stance that contradicts the Holy See’s tradition of neutrality.
In excerpts from a forthcoming book the Pope called for a thorough examination of whether the situation in the Gaza Strip “corresponds to the technical definition” of genocide. AFP notes that Israel rejects claims that it is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
The Vatican has recognized the Palestinian state since 2013, maintains diplomatic relations with it and supports a two-state solution, supplied by AFP.
