Pope calls for investigation on whether genocide is taking place in Gaza
While Pope Francis has criticized the war before, this is the first time he has publicly suggested an investigation, according to excerpts from a new book.
The pope spoke to his fellow Argentine for “Hope Never Disappoints: Pilgrims Toward a Better World,” a book to be released in Italy on Tuesday to mark the 2025 jubilee, when millions of Catholics are expected to visit Rome.
“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide,” Francis said. “We should investigate carefully to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies.”
Yaron Sideman, the designated Israeli ambassador to the Vatican, rejected the charge. “There was a genocidal massacre on 7 October 2023 of Israeli citizens, and since then, Israel has exercised its right of self-defense against attempts from seven different fronts to kill its citizens,” he wrote on X in response, referencing Hamas’s attack on Israel over a year ago that killed at least 1,200 people.
More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the local health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
During his tenure, Francis has offered one the strongest defenses of Israel by a sitting pope, although some Jewish critics have strenuously complained about his comments on the Gaza conflict.
Last November, during a general audience in St. Peter’s Square, he said that the conflict had “gone beyond war. This is terrorism.”
That statement came nearly a month after a private phone call with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in which Francis also suggested Israel was responding to “terror with terror,” The Post reported.
Prior to his comments last year in St. Peter’s Square, Francis met separately with groups of Palestinians and family members of Israeli hostages. During his session with the Palestinians, an attendee said the pope used the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s response. At the time, a Vatican spokesman had said he did not think the pope had used the word, though he could not categorically rule it out.
Israel already faces accusations that it has violated international legal obligations under the Genocide Convention. In December, South Africa filed a case to the International Court of Justice alleging that Israel’s actions are “genocidal in character” aimed at destroying “Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.”
Condemning the allegation, Israel asserts that its operations in Gaza are targeted at dismantling Hamas in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack.
In January, the court ordered Israel to do more to prevent the killing of civilians in Gaza but did not call for a cease-fire. The panel of judges called on Israel to prevent the possibility of genocide and ramp up aid to the besieged enclave. The decision was not a verdict on the question of whether Israel has committed genocide, which could take years.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide codifies genocide as an international crime. The 1948 treaty defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” These include killing members of the group, inflicting bodily or mental harm on a group, making its living conditions impossible, preventing births within the group or forcibly transferring its children. The majority of U.N. member states, 153 countries, have either ratified or acceded to the convention, while 41 countries have not.
The pope’s comments come at a time of worsening conditions for Gaza’s civilian population, which has endured more than a year of grinding conflict. The majority of its 2.2 million residents have been repeatedly displaced — living in squalid camps or in the remains of bombed homes. The collapse of the health care infrastructure has left many without access to critical care. And in the north — which has been under a harsh siege for weeks — aid agencies have described conditions as “apocalyptic.”
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