ROME — Pope Francis called for a global ceasefire this weekend while again decrying Israel’s “cruelty” in dealing with Palestinians in Gaza.
“Let us pray for a ceasefire on all war fronts, in Ukraine, the Holy Land, in all the Middle East and the entire world, at Christmas,” the pontiff said in his weekly Angelus address Sunday. “And with sorrow I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty; of the children machine-gunned, the bombing of schools and hospitals… So much cruelty!”
The pope also called out ongoing attacks on “tormented Ukraine” that at times damage schools, hospitals, and churches.
“May the weapons be silenced and Christmas carols resound!” he said.
Sunday’s commentary was the second time Pope Francis accused Israel of “cruelty” in just one weekend, having said Saturday that Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza goes beyond warfare and constitutes “cruelty.”
Speaking to members of the Roman Curia in his annual Christmas address, Francis remarked on Israeli airstrikes on Friday that killed at least 25 Palestinians in Gaza, including 7 children.
“Yesterday, children were bombed. This is cruelty. This is not warfare,” Francis said. “I want to say this because it moves the heart.”
The pope has come under fire for suggesting that Israeli conduct in the ongoing Gaza conflict may qualify as “genocide” of the Palestinian people.
“As a people who lost six million of its sons and daughters in the Holocaust, we are particularly sensitive to the trivialization of the term ‘genocide’ — a trivialization that comes dangerously close to Holocaust denial,” wrote Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli on Friday.
The pope had already described Israel’s military incursions in Gaza as “terrorism” and a “massacre,” but recently went further by suggesting that they may constitute genocide.
“There is something disturbing about a pope accusing Jews — the victims of genocide themselves — of genocide while they are fighting for survival on several fronts against enemies aiming to destroy them,” wrote the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board in an op-ed.
“Especially after the barbarous Oct. 7 massacre of unarmed Israeli civilians that started the war, and the follow-up Hamas strategy of using innocent Palestinian civilians as human shields,” it said.
Italian Holocaust survivor Edith Bruck similarly reproached the pope for using the genocide to describe Israel’s war on Hamas.
“Genocide is something else. When a million children are burned to death, then you can talk about genocide,” the 93-year-old Bruck said in an interview with the Italian daily La Repubblica.
The risk of using the word “genocide” too easily is that it diminishes “the gravity of real genocides, using the word when it is not appropriate. Genocides are something else,” she stated.