Pope Francis has called for an investigation into whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, addressing the issue for the first time in an excerpt from a forthcoming book.
“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of genocide,” the pope said in an excerpt published Sunday in the Italian daily La Stampa.
“We need to carefully examine whether it falls within the technical definitions set by legal scholars and international organizations,” he added.
The book was written by Hernán Reyes Alcaide and is based on interviews with the Pope and is titled “Hope Never Disappoints: A Pilgrim to a Better World.” The book will be released on Tuesday ahead of the 2025 papal jubilee year, when more than 30 million pilgrims are expected to travel to Rome for the celebrations.
Argentina’s pope has frequently expressed regret over the high number of casualties in the Israeli war, with the death toll in the Gaza Strip reaching 43,846, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza Strip’s Ministry of Health. There is.
But his call for an investigation marks the first time he has publicly used the term “genocide” in the context of Israeli military attacks in Gaza, although he does not endorse its use. be.
The Israeli embassy in the Vatican responded late Sunday with a post about X, citing Ambassador Yaron Seidman.
“There was a genocide against the Israeli people on October 7, 2023, and since then Israel has exercised its right of self-defense against attempts to kill its people from seven different fronts,” the statement said.
“Any attempt to call it any other name singles out the Jewish state.”
But campaigners and Palestinian supporters have described Israel’s offensive as a “war for revenge” that has left the Gaza Strip in ruins.
intensify criticism
The war in Gaza has given rise to several cases at the International Tribunal in The Hague, including accusations and denials of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, as well as requests for arrest warrants.
On Thursday, a United Nations special committee determined that Israel’s acts of war in Gaza were “consistent with the characteristics of genocide” and accused the country of “using starvation as a means of war.”
That conclusion has already been condemned by Israel’s main supporter, the United States.
South Africa, with the support of several countries including Türkiye, Spain and Mexico, brought the genocide case to the International Court of Justice. In January, court judges ordered Israel to stop its military from carrying out acts of genocide. The court has not yet ruled on the heart of the case: whether genocide occurred in Gaza.
Pope Francis, leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church, is usually careful not to take sides in international conflicts and emphasizes de-escalation. But he has stepped up his criticism of Israel’s actions in its war with the Palestinians.
In September, he condemned the killing of Palestinian children in an Israeli military attack in the Gaza Strip. He also harshly criticized Israel’s airstrikes on Lebanon, calling them “amoral.”
President Francis has never publicly described the situation in Gaza as a genocide. But last year, he became the center of a nasty controversy after a meeting with a Palestinian group at the Vatican, in which the group claimed he had used the term against Palestinians in private, but the Vatican had not. He claimed that there was no.
Francis has also frequently called for the return of Israeli prisoners captured by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Of the 251 people captured that day, 97 are still held in the Palestinian territories, including 34 who Israeli forces say are dead.
On Thursday, the Pope received 16 former prisoners of war who were released after months of detention in Gaza.
