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Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes ‘Cruelty’ after Israeli Minister’s Criticism

A Palestinian mourns as he carries the shrouded body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike the previous night, during a funeral in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip on December 21, 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas militants continues. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
A Palestinian mourns as he carries the shrouded body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike the previous night, during a funeral in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip on December 21, 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas militants continues. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
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Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes ‘Cruelty’ after Israeli Minister’s Criticism

A Palestinian mourns as he carries the shrouded body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike the previous night, during a funeral in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip on December 21, 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas militants continues. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
A Palestinian mourns as he carries the shrouded body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike the previous night, during a funeral in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip on December 21, 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas militants continues. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Pope Francis on Saturday again condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, a day after an Israeli government minister publicly denounced the pontiff for suggesting the global community should study whether the military offensive there constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people.

Francis opened his annual Christmas address to the Catholic cardinals who lead the Vatican's various departments with what appeared to be a reference to Israeli airstrikes on Friday that killed at least 25 Palestinians in Gaza.

"Yesterday, children were bombed," said the pope. "This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart."

The pope, as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, is usually careful about taking sides in conflicts, but he has recently been more outspoken about Israel's military campaign against the Palestinian group Hamas.

In book excerpts published last month, the pontiff said some international experts said that "what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide".

Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli sharply criticized those comments in an unusual open letter published by Italian newspaper Il Foglio on Friday. Chikli said the pope's remarks amounted to a "trivialization" of the term genocide.

Francis also said on Saturday that the Catholic bishop of Jerusalem, known as a patriarch, had tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Friday to visit Catholics there, but was denied entry.

The patriarch's office told Reuters it was not able to comment on the pope's remarks about the patriarch being denied entry.

The Israeli military said on Saturday the patriarch's entry had been approved and he would enter Gaza on Sunday, barring any major security issues. Aid from the patriarch's office entered last week, the military said.

Israel allows clerics to enter Gaza and "works in cooperation with the Christian community to make it easier for the Christian population that remains in the Gaza Strip – including coordinating its removal from the Gaza Strip to a third country," a statement from the military said.

The war began when Hamas-led Palestinian fighters attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel's retaliatory campaign, which it says is aimed at eliminating Hamas, has killed more than 45,000 people, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. The campaign has displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins.

Israel says that at least a third of the dead have been fighters and says it tries to avoid harm to civilians but is battling combatants who it accuses of embedding among the population in dense urban areas. Hamas rejects this. 

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Arab World

UNRWA Head Seeks Investigation into Killing of Staff in Gaza War

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini attends a press conference on the last day of his mandate at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 31, 2026. (Reuters)
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini attends a press conference on the last day of his mandate at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 31, 2026. (Reuters)
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UNRWA Head Seeks Investigation into Killing of Staff in Gaza War

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini attends a press conference on the last day of his mandate at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 31, 2026. (Reuters)
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini attends a press conference on the last day of his mandate at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 31, 2026. (Reuters)

Discussions are ‌under way for a UN investigation into the killing of more than 390 employees in the two-year Gaza war, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency said on Tuesday, making it the deadliest conflict in the body's history.

"I believe that we need to have a panel – a high-level panel ‌of experts to ‌look into the killing of ‌our ⁠staff," said Philippe Lazzarini, ⁠UNRWA Commissioner-General at a press conference in Geneva on the last day of his term.

The topic has been raised with the office of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and with ⁠member states in New York, he ‌added.

"Part of the ‌reason this has not (been) operationalized yet ‌is there is still an ongoing conflict," ‌he added, referring to Israel's continuing airstrikes in the enclave despite an October ceasefire that ended the Israel-Hamas war.

More than 72,000 Palestinians ‌have been killed since the war in Gaza began in October ⁠2023, ⁠according to local health officials, following an attack on Israel by Hamas-led gunmen in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

Lazzarini, who will be replaced temporarily by Britain's Christian Saunders, warned earlier this month that his organization's viability was in doubt and that any collapse would result in Israel taking over its humanitarian work.

Arab World

Explosion Heard near Iraq's Erbil Airport

People inspect damage at a building whose windows were shattered following air defenses' interception of a projectile or drone over a residential neighborhood in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's northern autonomous Kurdish region, on March 4, 2026. (Photo by Safin HAMID / AFP)
People inspect damage at a building whose windows were shattered following air defenses' interception of a projectile or drone over a residential neighborhood in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's northern autonomous Kurdish region, on March 4, 2026. (Photo by Safin HAMID / AFP)
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Explosion Heard near Iraq's Erbil Airport

People inspect damage at a building whose windows were shattered following air defenses' interception of a projectile or drone over a residential neighborhood in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's northern autonomous Kurdish region, on March 4, 2026. (Photo by Safin HAMID / AFP)
People inspect damage at a building whose windows were shattered following air defenses' interception of a projectile or drone over a residential neighborhood in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's northern autonomous Kurdish region, on March 4, 2026. (Photo by Safin HAMID / AFP)

An explosion was heard Tuesday morning near the international airport of Erbil, a city in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, an AFP journalist said.

Erbil is home to a major US consulate complex, while its airport houses military advisers attached to a US-led international anti-ISIS coalition.

Regular drone attacks by pro-Iran armed groups have usually been intercepted by air defenses.

Arab World

Palestinian Factions Uncover Israeli Espionage Devices in Gaza

Israeli forces raid the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza in November 2023. (AFP)
Israeli forces raid the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza in November 2023. (AFP)
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Palestinian Factions Uncover Israeli Espionage Devices in Gaza

Israeli forces raid the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza in November 2023. (AFP)
Israeli forces raid the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza in November 2023. (AFP)

Palestinian armed factions in Gaza are intensifying their operations in search of Israeli espionage devices that were planted in the enclave during the latest war.

Sources from the factions told Asharq Al-Awsat that Israel managed to plant them through field agents or when its military was active in some parts of Gaza.

The devices include advanced cameras and listening devices that can record sound at distances as far as 500 meters that allow Israel to analyze the voiceprint of wanted suspects.

Up until recently, the factions used to secretly operate to uncover the devices. Last week, one of the devices went off without warning after being discovered by one of the factions inside a displacement camp in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. Hours later, an Israeli jet fired two rockets at the location.

Sources from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other factions told Asharq Al-Awsat that their members have discovered several such devices in recent months.

Some were uncovered during the war, after the assassination of some field operatives, and others after the ceasefire took effect.

The sources explained that the devices are built to self-destruct after they are discovered, or they send their users a warning or signal that they have been discovered so that they can be destroyed.

The majority of the devices that have been discovered so far were sending information, images or recordings to Israeli drones.

Some of the devices were uncovered in hospitals that the army had raided during the war, such as Al-Shifa Hospital and others.

One source said searches uncovered devices placed in hospital furniture. They carried cameras that can shoot distances of at least 800 meters. Other devices were used for recording sounds, which likely allowed users to recognize the voice of wanted suspects.

Some devices were discovered after rainfall. One source explained to Asharq Al-Awsat that flooding in Khan Younis unearthed devices that were likely planted by collaborators with Israel. Some devices were placed inside wooden boxes that were concealed in rocks.

Factions also concluded that Israeli drones would drop espionage devices in “dead security zones” where they can be picked up by collaborators who would plant them in specified locations in Gaza.

Devices have been discovered in the streets and inside destroyed houses. They were likely used to detect the movement of members of factions.

Israel has long planted espionage devices in Gaza, preceding the October 2023 war.

One of the sources said devices were discovered inside offices of the factions and even the houses of their members.

The devices would have entered Gaza concealed in trade goods allowed into the enclave and received by collaborators in various ways.

In May 2018, six members of Hamas’ armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, were killed when an espionage device they were inspecting blew up.

Investigations soon after discovered major security breaches inside the Qassam that allowed Israel to spy on them. The discovery thwarted the spy operation, the Brigades said at the time.