By Joshua McElwee
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis on Saturday again condemned Israel's airstrikes in Gaza, a day after an Israeli government minister publicly accused the pontiff of suggesting the world community should learn that military attacks there include the killing of Palestinians.
Francis opened his annual Christmas address to Catholic cardinals who lead various Vatican departments with what appeared to be a reference to Israeli airstrikes on Friday that killed 25 Palestinians in Gaza.
“Yesterday, children were bombed,” said the Pope. “This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart.”
The pope, as leader of the 1.4 billion-member Roman Catholic Church, is usually wary of taking sides in controversies, but he has recently been outspoken about Israel's military campaign against the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
In texts published last month, the pope said that some international experts say that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of genocide”.
Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli strongly criticized the comments in a rare open letter published by Italian newspaper Il Foglio on Friday. Chikli said the pope's comments amounted to “carelessness” of the word genocide.
Francis also said on Saturday that the Catholic bishop of Jerusalem, known as the patriarch, tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Friday to visit Catholics there, but was denied entry.
The patriarch's office told Reuters it could not comment on the pope's comments about the patriarch being denied entry.
The Israeli army said on Saturday that the patriarch's entry had been approved and that he would enter Gaza on Sunday, ruling out any security issues. Help from the patriarch's office arrived last week, the military said.
Israel is allowing clerics to enter Gaza and is “working with the Christian community to make it easier for the Christian people who remain in the Gaza Strip – including coordinating their removal from the Gaza Strip to a third country,” a statement from the military said. .
The war began when Palestinian militants led by Hamas attacked communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking more than 250 people back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel's retaliatory operation, which it says aims to eliminate Hamas, has killed more than 45,000 people, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. The campaign displaced almost all people and left many areas in ruins.
Israel says at least a third of the dead were soldiers and said they were trying to prevent civilian casualties but were battling attackers who allegedly infiltrated civilians in densely populated urban areas. Hamas denies this.