SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
pope francis
Another Somber Christmas in Palestine as Gaza Genocide Continues
"I wish the war would end and we could return to our homes in peace," said one little girl whose grandmother was killed by an Israeli sniper.
Dec 25, 2024
From the illegally occupied "little town of Bethlehem" in the West Bank to a pair of churches in Gaza where Israel's bombs and bullets have killed clerics and congregants alike, Palestinian Christians marked another somber Christmas amid a relentless Israeli assault whose victims on Wednesday included refugees sheltering in tents and medical staff and patients at a besieged hospital.
For the second year in a row, public Christmas celebrations were canceled at the Nativity Church in Bethlehem, which is built over the spot where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born.
"This should be a time of joy and celebration. But Bethlehem is a sad town in solidarity with our siblings in Gaza," Lutheran Pastor Munther Isaac said during his Christmas sermon at a church whose nativity display again had baby Jesus lying in a pile of rubble.
"It's hard to believe that another Christmas has come upon us and the genocide has not stopped," Isaac added. "Decision-makers are content to let this continue. To them, Palestinians are dispensable."
In Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian Christians huddled in two churches amid ongoing attacks by Israeli forces.
"This year, we will conduct our religious rites and that's it," Ramez Souri toldThe New York Times at the St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City. "We're still in mourning and far too sad to celebrate, or do anything except to pray for peace."
Hundreds of Palestinians were sheltering on the grounds of the 12th century church—Gaza's oldest—when Israeli forces bombed it in October 2023, killing 18 people including Souri's three children and relatives of former Republican U.S. Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan.
In a pre-Christmas homily at Holy Family Church in Gaza City—Gaza's only Catholic church— Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, told congregants, "You have become the light of our church in the entire world."
"At Christmas, we celebrate the light and ask: Where is this light?" Pizzaballa continued. "The light is here, in this church."
"I don't know when or how this war will end, and every time we approach the end, it seems like we start anew," he added. "But sooner or later, the war will end, and we must not lose hope. When the war ends, we will rebuild everything: our schools, our hospitals, and our homes. We must remain resilient and full of strength."
Like St. Porphyrius, Holy Family has suffered a deadly Israeli attack. Last December, an Israeli sniper shot Nahida Khalil Anton, the elderly matriarch of the largest Catholic family in Gaza, as she crossed a courtyard in the church compound on her way to the bathroom. Her daughter Samar was shot in the head when she rushed out to try and help her mother.
Both women died. Seven other people were shot and wounded. Israeli soldiers and veterans have said that they were given permission and even orders to shoot anyone who moves in parts of Gaza.
"I wish the war would end and we could return to our homes in peace." A Christian Palestinian girl in Gaza wishes for peace on Christmas Day amid Israel's war, at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City.
[image or embed]
— aljazeera.com (@aljazeera.com) December 25, 2024 at 5:52 AM
On Sunday, Pope Francis—who in a new book called for a genocide investigation of Israel's war on Gaza—said: "Yesterday, children have been bombed. This is cruelty; this is not war."
The cruelty continued on Christmas as Israeli attacks throughout Gaza killed at least 13 people, according to officials. The dead include people sheltering in a tent northwest of Khan Younis, Palestine Red Crescent Society volunteer Alaa al-Derawi—who was shot in the chest while at work transporting patients—and Walaa al-Faranji, a well-known fashion designer, author, and photographer who was killed along with her husband Ahmed Salama in an airstrike on their home in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Local media also reported continued Israeli shelling and attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, where staff and scores of patients including premature babies have endured weeks of siege conditions.
All told, Gaza and international agencies say that at least 45,361 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and more than 107,800 others wounded by Israeli forces since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. At least 11,000 other Gazans are missing and believed to be dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed buildings. Millions more Palestinians have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
Thousands more people have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Last month, the International Criminal Court, also based in The Hague, issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, as well as for Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Back at St. Porphyrius, parishioners pooled what little food they could find to prepare a communal Christmas Eve meal. Although many Gazan Christians have expressed fears that their community—one of the oldest Christian communities in the world—could be wiped out by Israel's genocidal onslaught, the holiday meal represented a faint glimmer of hope.
"We wanted to do something to show that we're still here," Souri explained, "despite it all."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Pope Francis Urges Genocide Probe of Israel's War on Gaza
The pontiff's call comes as the International Court of Justice is reviewing evidence in a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel.
Nov 17, 2024
In a new book set to be released this week, Pope Francis I endorsed a genocide investigation into Israel's war on Gaza—which has killed or maimed more than 150,000 Palestinians and forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened millions more over the past 13 months.
"In the Middle East, where the open doors of nations like Jordan or Lebanon continue to be a salvation for millions of people fleeing conflicts in the region: I am thinking above all of those who leave Gaza in the midst of the famine that has struck their Palestinian brothers and sisters given the difficulty of getting food and aid into their territory," the pontiff wrote in his latest book, which goes on sale in some countries on November 19.
"According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide," the Pope added. "It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies."
The Pope's words echo last week's finding by a United Nations expert panel that Israel's annihilation of Gaza is "consistent with the characteristics of genocide."
The International Court of Justice—a U.N. organ—is currently weighing a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs as well as hundreds of groups and experts around the world.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three former Hamas leaders assassinated by Israel, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including extermination.
Many jurists, scholars, and other experts—including some of Israel's leading Holocaust historians—have called Israel's policies and actions in Gaza genocide. Early in the war, Raz Segal—an Israeli historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey—called Israel's Gaza onslaught "a textbook case of genocide."
Numerous world leaders and other international officials, artists, entertainers, and others—including half of Democratic voters in the United States surveyed in May—also agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Many Palestinian Christians have been killed, injured, or otherwise harmed by Israeli forces during the bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza. With just 800 to 1,000 people believed remaining in Gaza, members of the world's oldest Christian community warned early in the war that they were "under threat of extinction."
In their most infamous attack on Gaza Christians, Israeli forces bombed the 12th century Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, Gaza's oldest, in October 2023, killing 18 Palestinians including numerous children. Among the victims were two women and an infant related to former Republican U.S. Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan.
After an Israeli sniper fatally shot an elderly woman and her daughter on the grounds of a Catholic church in Gaza City last December, Pope Francis condemned what he called an act of "terrorism."
Amid the death and destruction wrought by Israel's assault on Gaza, last December's Christmas celebrations were canceled in Bethlehem, the purported birthplace of Jesus Christ.
"How can we celebrate when we feel this war—this genocide—that is taking place could resume at any moment?" asked Palestinian Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac at the time.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Under Milei, Far-Right Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Recriminalize Abortion in Argentina
One leftist lawmaker said that "we see deputies from La Libertad Avanza desperate to once again use the patriarchal reaction as a unifying element" to distract from the nation's economic woes.
Feb 08, 2024
Members of Argentinian President Javier Milei's far-right ruling coalition this week introduced a bill to recriminalize abortion, a proposal subsequently disavowed by the libertarian leader's office—for now.
Five deputies from Milei's La Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) coalition—with 27-year-old Santa Fe lawmaker Rocío Bonacci spearheading the effort—are sponsoring the bill to overturn Law 27610, which Argentina's National Congress approved in December 2020 at the culmination of a decadeslong fight by reproductive rights advocates.
"I defend life," Bonacci, said on social media. "No more, no less."
"They want to distract us by coming back to this concluded debate to avoid worrying about what's urgent: Hunger and unemployment."
A sixth coalition lawmaker, cosplay influencer Lilia Lemoine, is listed as a sponsor of the bill, but said she does not support the "really damaging" proposal at this time.
The draft legislation proposes prison sentences of 1-3 years for a "woman who causes her own abortion or consents to someone else causing it." Abortion providers could be imprisoned for 1-4 years if they "act with the consent of the woman" and 3-10 years if they perform the medical procedure without consent. The maximum prison term would be 15 years if the pregnant person dies from an abortion.
The bill does not contain any exception for rape; however, it gives judges the discretion to consider "the reasons that prompted her to commit the crime, her subsequent attitude, and the nature of the fact."
Milei spokesperson Manuel Adorni stressed during a Thursday morning press conference that Bonacci had introduced the legislation of her own accord and that the bill "is not part of the president's agenda."
Adorni said Milei is "focused on what is most urgent," which is "straightening out Argentina."
Critics contend the proposed legislation is an attempt to deflect attention from this week's failure of Milei's omnibus bill to deregulate much of Argentina's economy and declare a public emergency giving the president sweeping powers to dictate economic, security, tariff, energy, and administrative issues through the end of the year.
The bill—which was sent back to committee on Tuesday—was the catalyst for massive nationwide protests and a general strike in recent months.
"Days after the great political defeat of the Milei government in Congress... they want to distract us by coming back to this concluded debate to avoid worrying about what's urgent: Hunger and unemployment," the National Campaign for Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion said in a statement. "We've said it once before and we'll say it again—not one step backward on our rights."
Leftist lawmaker Myriam Bregman said on social media that "we see deputies from La Libertad Avanza desperate to once again use the patriarchal reaction as a unifying element" amid the nation's economic woes.
It is uncertain whether Milei—who has railed against the "radical feminist agenda" and the "bloody agenda of abortion"—would ultimately support recriminalizing abortion. Adorni said on Thursday that Bonacci's bill "will be debated" at "some point."
Milei is currently visiting Israel. In a show of support for that country's far-right government—which stands accused in the International Court of Justice of committing genocide in Gaza—he announced Tuesday that he would move Argentina's embassy to Jerusalem.
On Monday, Milei is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis at The Vatican. Although the two Argentinians have been at odds—Milei once called the Catholic leader an "imbecile"—both the president and the pontiff are staunchly opposed to abortion, with the latter equating the healthcare procedure to "hiring a hitman to solve a problem."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular