Pope Francis, on Sunday, waded into the ongoing attacks and violence in Israel and Gaza, saying enough to the killings that had claimed children and women among others.
Francis, who called on the humanitarian corridors to allow the delivery of essentials to the Gaza Strip, which is under heavy Israeli bombardment following a bloody attack by its rulers, Hamas, insisted humanitarian laws must be respected in the midst of the fighting.
Report, however, claimed conditions in Gaza hospitals were so critical that health workers had begun to store bodies in ice cream freezer trucks because moving them to hospitals has become too risky, even as cemeteries were reportedly full.
This was as the Israeli forces were last night readying for a ground invasion of Gaza.
Conversely, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency published comments on Sunday by President Mahmoud Abbas, criticising Hamas over its actions but later removed reference to the militant group without any explanations.
Concerns had increased over a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where Israel has reportedly cut off water, food and power, vowing to maintain the complete siege until all hostages taken by the Palestinian Islamist militant group were freed.
In the eight days since Hamas gunmen killed more than 1,300 Israelis in their attack, Israel has responded with a devastating bombing campaign that had claimed over 2,300 lives in Gaza.
But the Pope, who spoke after his traditional Angelus prayer in Rome’s Saint Peter’s Square, said, “Humanitarian law must be respected, especially in Gaza, where it is urgent and necessary to guarantee humanitarian corridors and help the population.
“I strongly urge that children, the sick, the elderly, women and all civilians should not fall victim to the conflict.
“There have already been so many deaths, please let’s not shed any more innocent blood, not in the Holy Land, not in Ukraine, not anywhere else. Enough is enough. War is always a defeat,” he said, castigating “the diabolical force of hatred, terrorism and war.”
Pope Francis also renewed his call “for the release of the hostages” kidnapped by Hamas fighters in southern Israel and invited “all believers to unite in prayer with the Church in the Holy Land” on Tuesday.
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday, vowed to “demolish Hamas” as his military prepared to move into the Gaza Strip in search of Islamist militants, whose deadly rampage through Israeli border towns shocked the world.
Israel has told Gazans to evacuate toward the South, which hundreds of thousands had already done in the enclave that was home to more than two million people, about half in Gaza City.
Israel has already besieged Gaza, where conditions were deteriorating and deaths from Israeli airstrikes rising, with civilians’ safety no longer certain.
But the militant group, Hamas, which runs Gaza, has told the people to ignore Israel’s message to move South.
However, with fears of the conflict spilling over, United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has continued his rapid tour of Middle East states, seeking to prevent escalation and secure the release of 126 hostages Israel said were taken by Hamas back into Gaza.
“The reaction went beyond the right to self-defence, turning into collective punishment,” said Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Israel’s retaliatory strikes.
Renewed clashes on Israel’s border with Lebanon on Sunday underscored the dangers of regional spillover.
Hamas’ armed wing Al Qassam Brigades said it fired 20 rockets from Lebanon on two Israeli settlements while Lebanon’s Iran-backed group Hezbollah said it targeted barracks in Israel’s Hanita with missiles and had inflicted casualties.
Netanyahu convened Israel’s expanded emergency cabinet, including former opposition lawmakers, in a show of unity.
“Hamas thought we would be demolished. It is we who will demolish Hamas,” he said.
Israel is carrying out the most intense bombardment Gaza has ever seen in response to the killing of 1,300 people when Hamas fighters rampaged through Israeli towns on Oct. 7.
They reportedly shot men, women, children and soldiers and seized hostages in the worst attack on civilians in Israel’s history.
Graphic video of the attacks, and reports from medical and emergency services of atrocities in the overrun towns and kibbutzes, deepened Israelis’ sense of shock.
Authorities in Gaza said more than 2,450 people had been killed in Israel’s retaliatory strikes so far, a quarter of them children, and nearly 10,000 wounded. Hospitals are running short of supplies and struggling to cope with the flow of the injured.
Among them was four-year-old Fulla Al-Laham, 14 members of whose family, including her parents and siblings, died in an Israeli air strike.
“May God keep me alive to take care of her,” said her grandmother Um Muhammed Al-Laham, who held the little girl’s hand as she lay in a hospital with a bandaged arm and on a drip.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said 300 people had been killed and 800 more injured in Gaza during the last 24 hours.
The Israeli military on Friday told residents of the northern half of the Gaza Strip – which includes Gaza City’s more than one million residents – to move south immediately.
“Hamas is trying to prevent your evacuation. We will enable it southward. Leave Gaza City and all the surrounding areas for the sake of your personal security,” reiterated Chief Israeli military spokesperson, Daniel Hagari.
Some Palestinians who went south said they were heading back north because they were attacked wherever they went.
Hussam Abu Safiya, an intensive care doctor on a children’s ward at the Kamal Edwan hospital in northern Gaza, said the order to evacuate was impossible.
“In this ward as you can see, there are children who are attached to ventilators, and now we have been asked to evacuate the hospital, where should we evacuate these children?”
The World Health Organization said Israel’s orders for the evacuation of 22 Gaza hospitals were a “death sentence for the sick and injured.”
Hamas has said dozens of people were killed in strikes on cars and trucks carrying refugees south on Friday. Reuters could not independently verify this claim.
The events are reminding Palestinians of the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” when many were forced from their homes during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation.
Blinken said he had a productive meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on Sunday before heading to Egypt. He will travel to Israel again on Monday.
Salman said Saudi Arabia was working hard to try to prevent the conflict escalating and wanted to help lift the siege.
The violence in Gaza has been accompanied by the deadliest clashes at Israel’s northern border with Lebanon since 2006.
Netanyahu’s national security adviser has warned Hezbollah not to take action that could lead to Lebanon’s “destruction.”
Iran has lauded the Hamas attack on Israel but denied any involvement. Hamas said in a statement Saturday it and Iran had “agreed to continue co-operation.”
“If the crimes of the Zionist regime, including the massacre of people and the siege of Gaza, do not stop, the situation will become more complicated and it will escalate,” Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi, told France’s President Emmanuel Macron in a call, state media said.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency published comments on Sunday by President Mahmoud Abbas that criticised Hamas over its actions but later removed reference to the militant group without providing an explanation.
The comments, published by WAFA on its website, came during a phone call between Abbas and Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro.
The two discussed Israel’s bombardment of Gaza following Hamas’ deadly rampage through Israeli cities.
The original WAFA report on Abbas’ call included the line: “The president also stressed that Hamas’ policies and actions do not represent the Palestinian people, and the policies, programmes and decisions of the (Palestine Liberation Organisation) represent the Palestinian people as their sole legitimate representative.”
Several hours later, the phrase was adjusted to read: “The president also stressed that the policies, programmes, and decisions of the PLO represent the Palestinian people as their sole legitimate representative, and not the policies of any other organization.”
It was not immediately clear why the reference to Hamas was removed. There was no immediate comment by Abbas’ office or by WAFA. Hamas had no immediate comment, either.
Abbas’ Palestinian Authority exercised limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He has long been opposed to Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007 and ousted Fatah party forces loyal to Abbas. Years of reconciliation talks between the rivals have failed to reach a breakthrough.
Abbas also heads the PLO, the umbrella group that represented the Palestinians in past U.S.-sponsored peace talks with Israel.
During his call with Maduro, Abbas “affirmed his rejection of the killing of civilians on both sides and called for the release of civilians, prisoners and detainees,” the WAFA report said.
