VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis deplored Friday a “hatred” sowed by the war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza that could incite further violence among “future generations,” reiterating his calls for a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages.
“All this suffering, the brutality of war, the violence it unleashes and the hatred it sows even among future generations should convince us all that every war leaves our world worse than it was before,” Francis said.
His comments marked the 10th anniversary of a call for peace in the Holy Land by Israel’s former president Shimon Peres and Mahmud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, at a Vatican meeting in June 2014.
“I think of all who suffer in Israel and Palestine: Christians, Jews and Muslims. I think of how urgent it is that from the rubble of Gaza a decision to stop the weapons will finally arise, and therefore I ask that there be a ceasefire,” he said in a statement released by the Vatican.
“I think of the families and of the Israeli hostages and ask that they be released as soon as possible. I think of the Palestinian population and ask that they be protected and receive all necessary humanitarian aid,” he said.
“All of us must work and commit ourselves to achieving a lasting peace, where the State of Palestine and the State of Israel can live side by side,” he added.
Efforts to mediate a first ceasefire in the Gaza conflict since a week-long pause in November appear to have stalled, only a week after US President Joe Biden offered a new roadmap.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, 120 of whom remain in Gaza, including 41 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 36,731 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Pope warns of ‘hatred’ fueling future Israel-Hamas conflict
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Pope warns of ‘hatred’ fueling future Israel-Hamas conflict
- I ask that there be a ceasefire, the Pope said
Saudi team trains Indonesian doctors in child heart surgery
- Surgeons, support staff sponsored by KSrelief arrived in Medan last month
- Only 50% of Indonesian children born with heart disease receive treatment
RIYADH: Saudi doctors are training their Indonesian colleagues in child heart surgery and helping expand access to pediatric cardiac care in the country’s northwest, the Indonesian Ministry of Health said on Saturday.
The 22-member surgical team arrived at Adam Malik Central General Hospital in Medan, North Sumatra province last month under a residence program arranged by Saudi aid agency KSrelief.
They began by performing free heart procedures on adult patients and last week switched focus to children with congenital heart disease, which in Indonesia often remains untreated due to a shortage of specialist wards.
An estimated 12,000 Indonesian children are born with heart disease each year. Only half of them are treated for it.
“The capacity of our doctors and hospitals is only 6,000 of the 12,000 each year. So, every year 6,000 children cannot be served and many of them die,” Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said.
“We’ve been collaborating with foreign institutions willing to send their doctors to Indonesia to, in the first place, provide services that we have not been able to provide in certain regions and, in the second place, to speed up the specialist training of our doctors to carry out the much needed procedures.”
The Saudi team comprises surgeons, nurses, perfusionists and respiratory therapists from the King Faisal Cardiac Center in Jeddah and the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center in Riyadh.
The transfer of knowledge program sponsored by KSrelief supports Indonesia’s health system transformation plan, under which all regional government hospitals should become capable of carrying out open-heart surgery and pediatric heart surgery. Until now, cardiac procedures on children have been referred to hospitals in the capital, Jakarta, which is nearly 2,000 km away from Medan.
For many parents, like Rominu Marpaung, the cost of travel is impossible to bear.
Marpaung’s 15-year-old son, Binsar, was diagnosed with a leaky heart valve five years ago and referred for surgery in Jakarta, but the family could not afford to send him.
On Tuesday, he was operated on by the visiting Saudi team.
“Up until now, I was taking Binsar only for outpatient treatment. I took him to so many hospitals,” Marpaung said.
“Thank you to the team of doctors for helping my child.”
UK submission of arguments to ICC could delay Netanyahu, Gallant arrest warrants
- Judges at the ICC ruled on Thursday that the British government was allowed to submit legal arguments to judges mulling
LONDON: A UK submission of arguments at the international criminal court could delay a decision on the issuance of arrest warrants against the Israeli prime minister and defense minister for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Judges at the ICC ruled on Thursday that the British government was allowed to submit legal arguments to judges mulling prosecutor Karim Khan’s request issued in May for arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.
Court documents made public on Thursday showed that UK, as an ICC member state, filed a request with the court earlier this month to provide written observations on whether “the court can exercise jurisdiction over Israeli nationals, in circumstances where Palestine cannot exercise criminal jurisdiction over Israeli nationals (under) the Oslo Accords.”
The court already has an ongoing investigation, launched in 2021, into any alleged crimes within its jurisdiction committed on Palestinian territory and by Palestinians on the territory of Israel.
In the same year, judges ruled that the court did have jurisdiction after the Palestinian authorities signed up to the court in 2015, after being granted United Nations observer state status.
The decision, however, left a ruling on the interpretation of the 1993 Oslo Accords regarding Palestinian jurisdiction over Israeli nationals for a later stage in the proceedings.
The British argument is that the Palestinian authorities cannot have jurisdiction over Israeli nationals under the accords, and so it cannot transfer that jurisdiction over to the ICC to prosecute Israelis.
Experts told the Guardian newspaper on Friday that the decision to allow the UK to intervene on this issue might delay the arrest warrants case, though a former ICC official familiar with the 2021 case said the jurisdictional issues had been resolved and, if challenged, would be “dead on arrival.”
Mark Kersten, an ICC expert and criminal justice professor at the University of the Fraser Valley in Canada, said “it would beggar belief” if judges ruled Palestine “could not ask the court to address atrocities committed on its territories because of a moribund Oslo peace process.”
Danya Chaikel, an International Federation for Human Rights’ representative at the ICC, said Britain’s attempt to challenge ICC jurisdiction citing the Oslo accords was “deeply troubling and unjust.”
Clive Baldwin, a senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch, also said the UK should not be “leading the charge for double standards in victims’ access to justice.”
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: “The UK believes that the court has not yet engaged with the impact and effect of the Oslo accords on jurisdiction in this case and we think it is imperative that they do so at any early stage of proceedings.”
* With Reuters
Fourteen killed in Nigeria after truck driver ‘lost control’
- The goods-laden truck lost control and ran over worshippers leaving a mosque
- The truck “lost control and collided with pedestrians who had just concluded Friday prayers,” the statement said
The truck “lost control and collided with pedestrians who had just concluded Friday prayers,” the statement said
KANO, Nigeria: Fourteen people were killed when a truck plowed into Muslim worshippers outside the northern Nigerian city of Kano, Nigeria’s road safety agency said.
The goods-laden truck lost control and ran over worshippers leaving a mosque shortly after observing Friday prayers in Imawa village, 30 kilometers outside Kano, the Federal Road Safety Commission said in a statement late Friday.
The truck “lost control and collided with pedestrians who had just concluded Friday prayers,” the statement said.
“This unfortunate collision resulted in the tragic loss of 14 lives and left several others injured,” it added.
Accidents are common on Nigeria’s poorly maintained roads due largely to speeding and disregard for traffic rules.
According to the road safety commission, more than 5,000 people died in road accidents in 2023, after 6,500 road deaths the previous year.
However the World Health Organizations estimated in a report last year that annual deaths linked to road accidents in Nigeria are actually nearer 40,000, with most not reported to the authorities.
Moscow claims east Ukrainian village in offensive on Toretsk
- Toretsk lies north-west of the city of Gorlivka
- The city has been largely spared from the worst of the fighting
MOSCOW: Russia on Saturday claimed another village in eastern Ukraine as it pushes toward the city of Toretsk in a fresh local offensive in the embattled Donetsk region.
Toretsk lies north-west of the city of Gorlivka, which has been under separatist control since 2014.
The city has been largely spared from the worst of the fighting but that has changed in recent weeks after Moscow’s forces began advancing, taking Ukrainian forces by surprise.
Moscow’s defense ministry said Russian forces had “as a result of successful acts, liberated the settlement of Shumy” and gained a better “tactical position.”
Shumy lies less than 10 kilometers (six miles) east of Toretsk, a mining town which had a pre-war population of around 32,000.
Ukrainian forces have been particularly vulnerable since the end of 2023 because of major delays in European and US arms deliveries.
Belarus bolsters air defense forces along Ukrainian border
- Belarus said earlier this week it had shot down a quadcopter that had illegally crossed the border
- The Defense Ministry said it had information showing Ukraine had been moving more troops
MINSK: Belarus has deployed additional air defense forces to its border with Ukraine to protect “critical infrastructure facilities” due to increased Ukrainian drone activity in the area, a Belarusian military commander said on Saturday.
Belarus, an ally of Russia in the war with Ukraine, said earlier this week it had shot down a quadcopter that had illegally crossed the border from Ukraine “to collect information about the Belarusian border infrastructure.”
The situation in the airspace over the border remains tense, Andrei Severinchik, commander of the Belarusian Air Defense Forces, said on Saturday.
“We are ready to decisively use all available forces and means to protect our territory and the population of the Republic of Belarus from possible provocations in the airspace,” he said in a statement published on the Defense Ministry’s Telegram channel.
The Defense Ministry said earlier on Saturday it had information showing Ukraine had been moving more troops, weapons and military equipment to the northern Zhytomyr region, which borders Belarus.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
