Pope Francis, in an upcoming book entitled ‘Hope Never disappoints: Pilgrims Towards a Better World’ written by Hernan Reyes Alcaide—based on interviews with the Pontiff—has called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s attacks in Gaza constitute genocide. This marks the first time Francis has openly called for an investigation of genocide allegations over Israel’s acts in the Gaza Strip. In September, he said the Israelis military operations in Gaza and Lebanon were both ‘immoral’ and disproportionate, highlighting that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have overstepped the rules of war.
Previous Accusations of Genocide
In mid-May, the United Network for Human Rights (UNHR) released a report concluding that ‘Israel has committed genocidal acts, namely killing, seriously harming, and inflicting conditions of life calculated, and intended to, bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza’. The UNHR added:
‘Israel’s military operation has destroyed up to 70 percent of homes in Gaza, and has decimated civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, universities, UN facilities, and cultural and religious heritage sites. A staggering 1.7 million civilians—over 75 per cent of Gaza’s population—have been forcibly displaced as a result of Israel’s military offensive.’
On October 28, a South African legal team delivered a nearly 5,000-page document to the United Nations’ top court, the International Court of Justice, accusing the Jewish State of crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip. And just last week a United Nations Special Committee concluded that Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza are indeed consistent with genocide, including use of starvation as weapon of war. Israel, naturally, denies it is committing genocide.
Israeli officials hold that the death toll from the October 7 Hamas attacks to be 1,139 people and 8,730 injured—there are still over 100 hostages being held by Hamas militants. The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 43,799 Palestinians—70 per cent women and children—have been killed by the IDF, with thousands of unaccounted buried under rubble and feared dead. The UN report states that it found ‘unprecedented’ levels of international law violations, raising concerns about ‘war crimes and other possible atrocity crimes.’
A majority of countries and non-governmental organizations have already called for boycotts, divestments, and sanctions against Israel as public opinion has begun to perceive it as pariah state, and not just by Islamic nations but in Europe, too, in particular among younger generations. Human rights groups, in particular the top Jewish one, B’Tselem, have demanded that the world must stop the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of northern Gaza.
Early this year, the leading left-liberal journal in Israel, Haaretz, published an article titled ‘Ethnic Cleansing in God’s Name: The Only Israelis With a Plan for the “Day After” in Gaza’, pointing out how right-wing Israeli officials, like Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Givr ‘encourage emigration’ from Gaza—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likewise called for ‘voluntary migration’.
A Grim Situation
The IDF, since early October, have thus far forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee south or face death. Residents say the IDF have raided shelters for the displaced, forcing people out at gunpoint. As of last month, more than 60,000 have fled to Gaza City in recent weeks from Jabaliya and the northern border towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, as women and children are coerced to walk to a nearby hospital, where Israeli soldiers searched them before allowing most to walk onward to Gaza City.
First responders say they can barely operate because of the Israeli bombardment, in addition to the IDF severely restricting aid and raiding hospitals it says are used by Hamas militants, ordering men to strip to their underwear, even some of the elderly ones. As of last month, at least 400,000 people are still in northern Gaza and hunger is rampant as the amount of humanitarian aid reaching the north has plummeted over the past month.
Punishing airstrikes have killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians in recent weeks, with residents describing areas of northern Gaza as a hellscape of debris and human limbs. Washington Post foreign affairs columnist Ishaan Tharoor recently wrote: ‘Rescue workers told my colleagues that Israeli authorities stymied their efforts to retrieve bodies from cratered buildings, leaving countless dead beneath the rubble. Hospitals are out of medicine, desalination and water pumps have stopped working due to lack of fuel as little to no aid has entered northern Gaza.’
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has recently said the displacement of Palestinians ‘is likely planned to be permanent in the buffer zones and security corridors’, an action it said would amount to ‘ethnic cleansing’. The Israeli Foreign Ministry denies this, saying that HWR’s ‘rhetoric…is completely false and detached from reality’.
Misleading Claims of Success
American supporters have, ironically, applauded Israel’s success, especially after killing the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack, Yahya Sinwar. In the words of Prof. Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institute:
‘Hamas’s leadership virtually liquidated. Its terrorist brigades are decimated and increasingly scattered, and its own battered constituencies now angry that they are suffering the consequences of a self-interested—and, worst of all, losing—Hamas elite.’
Indeed, even U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised the Israelis in October, saying that they have ‘achieved most of the strategic objectives when it comes to Gaza. Now is the time to turn those successes into an enduring strategic success.’
Israel says it has killed over 18,000 Hamas fighters, without providing evidence. There is no doubt that the Hamas militants (and those of Hezbollah) have taken heavy losses. However, such aforementioned claims of victory are deceiving, for Israel has not and is nowhere near to achieving a decisive victory in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas not only continues to hold scores of hostages, but they also remain the dominant power in Gaza as they continue to both recruit new members and carry out hit-and-run attacks from bombed-out buildings, to which the IDF has yet to have come up with a strategic solution to at least contain them. There is also a notable disjunction between Israel’s means and ends, one that dispels concern for the civilian populations in both Gaza and now Lebanon.
Pope Francis on the Conflict
Last year, Pope Francis met separately with relatives of Israeli hostages in Gaza and Palestinians living through the war. His use of terminology, usually avoided by Vatican diplomats, such as ‘terrorism’, and, according to the Palestinians, ‘genocide’, set off a firestorm. In any case, the Pontiff now says in his book:
‘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.’
The views expressed by our guest authors are theirs and do not necessarily represent the views of Hungarian Conservative.
Read other viewpoints on the subject: