JERUSALEM: The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, on Tuesday hailed Pope Francis’s support for Gazans and engagement with the small Catholic community in the war-battered Palestinian territory.
The Catholic church’s highest authority in the region, who is considered a potential successor to the late pontiff, Pizzaballa told journalists in Jerusalem that “Gaza represents, a little bit, all what was the heart of his pontificate.”
Pope Francis, who died on Monday aged 88, advocated peace and “closeness to the poor... and to the neglected one,” said the patriarch.
These positions became particularly evident in Francis’s response to the Israel-Hamas war which broke out in October 2023, Pizzaballa said.
“He was very close to the community of Gaza, the parish of Gaza, he kept calling them many times — for a certain period, also every day, every evening at 7 pm,” said the patriarch.
He added that by doing so, the pope “became for the community something stable, and also comforting for them, and he knew this.”
Out of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people, about 1,000 are Christians. Most of them are Orthodox, but according to the Latin Patriarchate, there are about 135 Catholics in the territory.
Since the early days of the war, members of the Catholic community have been sheltering at Holy Family Church compound in Gaza City, and some Orthodox Christians have also found refuge there.
Pope Francis repeatedly called for an end to the war. The day before his death, in a final Easter message delivered on Sunday, he condemned the “deplorable humanitarian situation” in the besieged territory.
“Work for justice... but without becoming part of the conflict,” said Pizzaballa of the late pontiff’s actions.
“For us, for the Church, it leaves an important legacy.”
The patriarch thanked the numerous Palestinian and Israeli public figures who have offered their condolences, preferring not to comment on the lack of any official message from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Even as “the local authorities... were not always happy” with the pope’s positions or statements, they were “always very respectful,” he said.
Pizzaballa said he will travel to Rome on Wednesday, after leading a requiem mass for the pope at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in the morning.
As one of the 135 cardinal electors, the Latin patriarch will participate in the conclave to elect a new pope.
Pizzaballa, a 60-year-old Italian Franciscan who also speaks English and Hebrew, arrived in Jerusalem in 1990 and was made a cardinal in September 2023, just before the Gaza war began.
His visits to Gaza and appeals for peace since then have attracted international attention.
Jerusalem patriarch hails pope’s commitment to Gaza
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Jerusalem patriarch hails pope’s commitment to Gaza
- Patriarch thanked numerous Palestinian and Israeli public figures who offered condolences, did not comment on lack of any official message from Netanyahu
UN envoy condemns intense wave of Israeli airstrikes on Syria
“I strongly condemn Israel’s continued and escalating violations of Syria’s sovereignty, including multiple airstrikes in Damascus and other cities,” Pedersen wrote
HARASTA, Syria: The United Nations special envoy for the Syrian Arab Republic condemned Saturday an intense wave of Israeli airstrikes as Israel said its forces were on the ground in Syria to protect the Druze minority sect following days of clashes with Syrian pro-government gunmen.
The late Friday airstrikes were reported in different parts of the capital, Damascus, and its suburbs, as well as southern and central Syria, local Syrian media reported. They came hours after Israel’s air force struck near Syria’s presidential palace after warning Syrian authorities not to march toward villages inhabited by Syrian Druze.
Israel’s military spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on X the strikes targeted a military post and anti-aircraft units. He also said the Israeli troops in Southern Syria were “to prevent any hostile force from entering the area or Druze villages” and that five Syrian Druze wounded in the fighting were transported for treatment in Israel.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported Saturday that four were wounded in central Syria, and that the airstrikes hit the eastern Damascus suburb of Harasta as well as the southern province of Daraa and the central province of Hama.
UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir O. Pedersen, denounced the strikes on X.
“I strongly condemn Israel’s continued and escalating violations of Syria’s sovereignty, including multiple airstrikes in Damascus and other cities,” Pedersen wrote Saturday, calling for an immediate cease of attacks and for Israel to stop “endangering Syrian civilians and to respect international law and Syria’s sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity, and independence.”
Four days of clashes between pro-government gunmen and Druze fighters have left nearly 100 people dead and raised fears of deadly sectarian violence.
The clashes are the worst between forces loyal to the government and Druze fighters since the early December fall of President Bashar Assad, whose family ruled Syria with an iron grip for more than five decades.
Israel has its own Druze community and officials have said they would protect the Druze of Syria and warned Islamic militant groups from entering predominantly Druze areas. Israeli forces have carried out hundreds of airstrikes since Assad’s fall and captured a buffer zone along the Golan Heights.
The Druze religious sect is a minority group that began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria.
Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981. In Syria, they largely live in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus, mainly in Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya to the south.
Groups fear Israeli proposal for controlling aid in Gaza will forcibly displace people
- Israel has not detailed any of its proposals publicly or put them down in writing
- “Israel has the responsibility to facilitate our work, not weaponize it,” said Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN agency
TEL AVIV: Israel has blocked aid from entering Gaza for two months and says it won’t allow food, fuel, water or medicine into the besieged territory until it puts in place a system giving it control over the distribution.
But officials from the UN and aid groups say proposals Israel has floated to use its military to distribute vital supplies are untenable. These officials say they would allow military and political objectives to impede humanitarian goals, put restrictions on who is eligible to give and receive aid, and could force large numbers of Palestinians to move — which would violate international law.
Israel has not detailed any of its proposals publicly or put them down in writing. But aid groups have been documenting their conversations with Israeli officials, and The Associated Press obtained more than 40 pages of notes summarizing Israel’s proposals and aid groups’ concerns about them.
Aid groups say Israel shouldn’t have any direct role in distributing aid once it arrives in Gaza, and most are saying they will refuse to be part of any such system.
“Israel has the responsibility to facilitate our work, not weaponize it,” said Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN agency that oversees the coordination of aid Gaza.
“The humanitarian community is ready to deliver, and either our work is enabled ... or Israel will have the responsibility to find another way to meet the needs of 2.1 million people and bear the moral and legal consequences if they fail to do so,” he said.
None of the ideas Israel has proposed are set in stone, aid workers say, but the conversations have come to a standstill as groups push back.
The Israeli military agency in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, known as COGAT, did not respond to a request for comment and referred AP to the prime minister’s office. The prime minister’s office did not respond either.
Since the beginning of March, Israel has cut off Gaza from all imports, leading to what is believed to be the most severe shortage of food, medicine and other supplies in nearly 19 months of war with Hamas. Israel says the goal of its blockade is to pressure Hamas to free the remaining 59 hostages taken during its October 2023 attack on Israel that launched the war.
Israel says it must take control of aid distribution, arguing without providing evidence that Hamas and other militants siphon off supplies. Aid workers deny there is a significant diversion of aid to militants, saying the UN strictly monitors distribution.
Alarm among aid groups
One of Israel’s core proposals is a more centralized system — made up of five food distribution hubs — that would give it greater oversight, aid groups say.
Israel has proposed having all aid sent through a single crossing in southern Gaza and using the military or private security contractors to deliver it to these hubs, according to the documents shared with AP and aid workers familiar with the discussions. The distribution hubs would all be south of the Netzarim Corridor that isolates northern Gaza from the rest of the territory, the documents say.
One of the aid groups’ greatest fears is that requiring Palestinians to retrieve aid from a small number of sites — instead of making it available closer to where they live — would force families to move to get assistance. International humanitarian law forbids the forcible transfer of people.
Aid officials also worry that Palestinians could end up permanently displaced, living in “de facto internment conditions,” according to a document signed by 20 aid groups operating in Gaza.
The hubs also raise safety fears. With so few of them, huge crowds of desperate Palestinians will need to gather in locations that are presumably close to Israeli troops.
“I am very scared about that,” said Claire Nicolet, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders.
There have been several occasions during the war when Israeli forces opened fire after feeling threatened as hungry Palestinians crowded around aid trucks. Israel has said that during those incidents, in which dozens died, many were trampled to death.
Given Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people, global standards for humanitarian aid would typically suggest setting up about 100 distribution sites — or 20 times as many as Israel is currently proposing — aid groups said.
Aside from the impractical nature of Israel’s proposals for distributing food, aid groups say Israel has yet to address how its new system would account for other needs, including health care and the repair of basic infrastructure, including water delivery.
“Humanitarian aid is more complex than food rations in a box that you pick up once a month,” said Gavin Kelleher, who worked in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council. Aid boxes can weigh more than 100 pounds, and transportation within Gaza is limited, in part because of shortages of fuel.
Experts say Israel is concerned that if Hamas seizes aid, it will then make the population dependent on the armed group in order to access critical food supplies. It could use income from selling the aid to recruit more fighters, said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at two Israeli think tanks, the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute.
Private military contractors
As aid groups push back against the idea of Israel playing a direct distribution role within Gaza, Israel has responded by exploring the possibility of outsourcing certain roles to private security contractors.
The aid groups say they are opposed to any armed or uniformed personnel that could potentially intimidate Palestinians or put them at risk.
In the notes seen by AP, aid groups said a US-based security firm, Safe Reach Solutions, had reached out seeking partners to test an aid distribution system around the Netzarim military corridor, just south of Gaza City, the territory’s largest.
Aid groups urged each other not to participate in the pilot program, saying it could set a damaging precedent that could be repeated in other countries facing crises.
Safe Reach Solutions did not respond to requests for a comment.
Whether Israel distributes the aid or employs private contractors to it, aid groups say that would infringe on humanitarian principles, including impartiality and independence.
A spokesperson for the EU Commission said private companies aren’t considered eligible humanitarian aid partners for its grants. The EU opposes any changes that would lead to Israel seizing full control of aid in Gaza, the spokesperson said.
The US State Department declined to comment on ongoing negotiations.
Proposals to restrict who can deliver and receive aid
Another concern is an Israeli proposal that would allow authorities to determine if Palestinians were eligible for assistance based on “opaque procedures,” according to aid groups’ notes.
Aid groups, meanwhile, have been told by Israel that they will need to re-register with the government and provide personal information about their staffers. They say Israel has told them that, going forward, it could bar organizations for various reasons, including criticism of Israel, or any activities it says promote the “delegitimization” of Israel.
Arwa Damon, founder of the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance, says Israel has increasingly barred aid workers from Gaza who had previously been allowed in. In February, Damon was denied access to Gaza, despite having entered four times previously since the war began. Israel gave no reason for barring her, she said.
Aid groups are trying to stay united on a range of issues, including not allowing Israel to vet staff or people receiving aid. But they say they’re being backed into a corner.
“For us to work directly with the military in the delivery of aid is terrifying,” said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy lead for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. “That should worry every single Palestinian in Gaza, but also every humanitarian worker.”
Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed bin Mubarak resigns
- Mubarak said he had faced “lots of difficulties”, including being unable to reshuffle the government
Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, the prime minister of Yemen's internationally recognized government, said on Saturday he had submitted his resignation.
In a statement, Mubarak said he had faced “lots of difficulties”, including being unable to reshuffle the government.
MSF says its hospital bombed in South Sudan
- “The pharmacy was destroyed. All medical supplies lost,” MSF said
JUBA: Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said one of its hospitals in South Sudan had been bombed early on Saturday, leading to the loss of all its medical supplies.
“At 4 am today, MSF’s hospital in Old Fangak, South Sudan, was bombed. The pharmacy was destroyed. All medical supplies lost. There are reports of people killed and injured,” the medical charity said in a statement.
UN chief condemns Israeli strikes on Syria
- Antonio Guterres ‘alarmed’ over reports of sectarian violence around Damascus, Suwayda
- UN commission ‘deeply troubled’ after more than 100 people were killed in clashes this week
NEW YORK CITY: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday condemned repeated Israeli airstrikes on Syria as well as growing sectarian violence around Damascus and Suwayda.
The condemnation came after more than 100 people were killed in clashes in the Syrian Arab Republic over the past week.
The violence has taken place in two predominantly Druze suburbs of the capital, Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, as well as in the southern Druze stronghold of Suwayda.
Guterres “has been monitoring with alarm the reports of violence in the suburbs of Damascus and in the south of Syria, including reports of civilian casualties and assassination of local administration figures,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Friday.
The secretary-general condemned “all violence against civilians” and acts that “could risk inflaming sectarian tensions.”
Amid the sectarian clashes, Israel launched a series of airstrikes on Syrian targets, in what it described as an attempt to protect the country’s Druze minority.
Early on Friday, it bombed an area near the Presidential Palace in Damascus. Later that day, it targeted the Damascus, Hama and Daraa countryside, killing one civilian in the former and injuring four people in Hama, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
Israel acknowledged the strikes, which it claimed targeted “a military site, anti-aircraft cannons and surface-to-air missile infrastructure.”
It followed a warning by Tel Aviv earlier this week that it would attack sites controlled by Syria’s new government if further sectarian clashes involving the Druze minority did not stop.
Guterres condemned Israel’s violation of Syria’s sovereignty and said it was “essential” that the attacks stop. He called on all parties to “cease all hostilities, exercise utmost restraint and avoid further escalation.”
Syria’s interim authorities under the government of President Ahmad Al-Sharaa must “transparently and openly” investigate all violations of peace in a bid to uphold their commitment to “dialogue and cooperation within the framework of national unity,” Guterres added.
On Friday, experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council on the Commission of Inquiry on Syria described the surge in sectarian violence as “deeply troubling.”
The commission was established in 2011, and its three commissioners serve in an independent capacity.
“The spread of discriminatory incitement and hate speech, including through social media, is fueling violence and risks threating Syria’s fragile social cohesion,” the commission said on Friday. “While the situation remains fluid and an agreement has reportedly been reached between prominent leaders in Suwayda and the authorities in Damascus, the commission underscores that the interim government remains responsible for ensuring the protection of all civilians in areas under its control. Impunity for grave violations has in the past been a consistent driver of Syria’s conflict and must not be allowed to persist.”
The commission also highlighted the risk posed by Israeli airstrikes, as well as Tel Aviv’s continued expansion of its occupation in the Golan Heights.
Israel’s attempts to “divide various Syrian communities risks further destabilizing Syria,” it said.
“Syria’s recent history should serve as a reminder that external interventions have often led to increased violence, displacement and fragmentation.”
