The Pope asks to “carefully investigate” whether there is a genocide in Gaza

MADRID 17 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –

Pope Francis has defended in his new book the need to “carefully investigate” whether the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip fits the definition of genocide.

“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide. It must be carefully investigated to determine if it fits the technical definition formulated by jurists and international organizations,” says the Pontiff in the book ‘Hope Never Disappoints’. . Pilgrims towards a better world’ published on the occasion of the Jubilee of 2025 and from which the Italian newspaper ‘La Stampa’ advances some extracts this Sunday.

The book, edited by journalist Hernán Reyes Alcaide (Edizioni Piemme), will be published next Tuesday in Italy, Spain and Latin America and later also in other countries.

The Pope also refers to the issue of immigration and maintains that “we are becoming inhuman.” “No country can be left alone and no one can think of addressing the issue in isolation through more restrictive and repressive laws, sometimes passed under the pressure of fear or in search of electoral advantages,” he warned.

On the contrary, in the face of the “globalization of indifference”, we must respond with the “globalization of charity and cooperation” so that the conditions of emigrants “are humanized.”

NEOCOLONIALISM IN AFRICA

Along these lines, Francis denounces that “neocolonialism still exists in Africa today” and that is why he has proposed that among the objectives of humanity should be “putting an end to the unequal conditions of trade between the different countries of the world.”

“In the links between many of them, a certain fiction has been established that gives the appearance of a supposed commercial exchange, but which in reality only consists of a transaction between subsidiaries that plunder the territories of poor countries and send their products and income to mother companies in developed countries,” he argues. As an example, he gives the sectors linked to the exploitation of natural resources.

The Pope has also referred to the “multitudinous mobilizations” of students in cities in different countries. “I know some of the actions with which they fight for a more just world” and for the protection of the environment.

“They act with concern, enthusiasm and, above all, with a sense of responsibility in the face of the urgent change of course imposed on us by the problems derived from the current ethical and socio-environmental crisis,” he highlights. “Time is running out. There isn’t much left to save the planet and they go, they go out and assert themselves. And they don’t do it just for themselves, they do it for us and for those who come after,” he highlights. Thus, it proposes an intergenerational dialogue for “an alliance applied to the care of our common home.”