Pope Calls For Probe to See If Genocide is Really Happening in Gaza

CrossFireArabia
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November 17, 2024

Pope Francis is calling for an investigation to determine whether a genocide is taking place in the Gaza Strip, the Vatican News agency reported on Sunday.

“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide. It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies,” he said in a passage from his new book of interviews, Hope Never Disappoints: Pilgrims Towards a Better World, which is due out this Tuesday according to Anadolu.

Pope Francis has said the international community should study whether Israel's war in Gaza constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people. pic.twitter.com/QqXjrbBHqE
— V PALESTINE 🇵🇸 (@V_Palestine20) November 17, 2024

“I am thinking above all of those who leave Gaza in the midst of the famine that has struck their Palestinian brothers and sisters given the difficulty of getting food and aid into their territory,” the pontiff added, referring to Israeli blockades which only allow a trickle of aid required by over 2 million people into the embattled enclave.

Israel has continued a devastating offensive on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023, killing nearly 44,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and rendering the enclave almost uninhabitable.

It also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in the blockaded enclave.

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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Bernie Sanders Says Israel is Despicable

CrossFireArabia
May 5, 2025

Independent US Sen. Bernie Sanders sharply denounced Israel’s ongoing blockade of the besieged Gaza Strip, and its plan to greatly expand the war and occupy the coastal enclave.

“64 days with no aid reaching Gaza. No food, no water, no medicine. Children are starving,” Sanders said in a statement posted on X. “Netanyahu’s extremist government now says it will occupy Gaza and put mercenaries in charge of distributing aid, instead of the UN and other aid groups. Despicable. No more US support for Netanyahu’s war machine.”

Earlier in the day, Israel’s Security Cabinet unanimously approved a plan to expand its ongoing military onslaught on the Gaza Strip and occupy territories inside the enclave.

In a statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the Cabinet approved “the operational plan” submitted by army chief Eyal Zamir to “defeat (Palestinian group) Hamas” and for the return of Israeli captives held in Gaza.

According to the statement, the plan requires the army “to conquer Gaza and hold the territory under its control.”

Israeli Channel 12 reported that the plan also includes the forcible relocation of Palestinians from northern Gaza to the south, according to Anadolu.

More than 52,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023.

In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

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