‘Heartbroken’ Christians in Gaza recall Pope Francis’ nightly calls during Israeli war

‘Heartbroken’ Christians in Gaza recall Pope Francis’ nightly calls during Israeli war
Members of the clergy hold mass for late Pope Francis at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, Apr. 21, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 22 April 2025
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‘Heartbroken’ Christians in Gaza recall Pope Francis’ nightly calls during Israeli war

‘Heartbroken’ Christians in Gaza recall Pope Francis’ nightly calls during Israeli war
  • Holy Family Church pays tribute to late pontiff, who died on Monday
  • Pope Francis’ phone calls to check on Gaza’s Christian community became routine

LONDON: Christians in the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip have told of their heartbreak following the death of Pope Francis, who had called them “every day” during the Israeli conflict that began in late 2023.

Gaza’s Holy Family Church paid tribute to the late pontiff, who passed away on Monday.

Father Gabriel Romanelli, the pastor of the parish, shared details about the pope’s last phone call with the Catholic community, revealing that he called them on Saturday and said: “Thank you … for all that we made here.”

During an interview with Sky News, Romanelli added that the pope had “asked (for) prayer and gave the blessing for all the people, for the Christian community and for all the citizens in Gaza.”

He added that the late pope “was a very humble servant of the Lord.”

Romanelli said: “All the time he told us, for more than a year-and-a-half (of the Israeli war), and he called every day, every day. He asked to help people, to protect the children.”

Pope Francis called for peace in conflict-ridden areas, including the Middle East and Sudan, throughout his 12-year tenure as head of the Catholic Church.

He called for an investigation into whether Israel had committed genocide in Gaza following the attack by Hamas on Israel in October 2023. He also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages during his final public appearance on Easter Sunday.

He said: “I express my closeness to the sufferings of Christians in Palestine and Israel and to all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people.

“I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace.”

Pope Francis died on Monday at the age of 88 after enduring a severe bout of double pneumonia.

George Antone, the head of the emergency committee at the Holy Family Church in Gaza, told the Vatican News Service: “We lost a saint who taught us every day how to be brave, how to keep patient and stay strong.”

The pope’s nightly phone calls to check on Gaza’s Christian community had become routine during the conflict. He also made it a point to speak to everyone in the room and not just the priest, Antone said.

He added: “We are heartbroken because of the death of Pope Francis, but we know that he is leaving behind a church that cares for us and that knows us by name, every single one of us.

“He used to tell each one: I am with you, don’t be afraid.”


Ireland moves to ban trade with Israeli-occupied territories

Ireland moves to ban trade with Israeli-occupied territories
Updated 11 min 10 sec ago
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Ireland moves to ban trade with Israeli-occupied territories

Ireland moves to ban trade with Israeli-occupied territories
  • FM Spokesperson: ‘The government has agreed to advance legislation prohibiting trade in goods with illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory’
  • FM Simon Harris: ‘When this small country in Europe makes the decision, I do hope it inspires other European countries to join us’

DUBLIN: The Irish government approved Tuesday the drafting of a bill to ban the import of goods from Israeli settlements considered illegal under international law, an unprecedented move for a European Union member.

The move comes after the International Court of Justice last year said Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip was illegal under international law, in an advisory opinion the Irish government said guided its decision.

“The government has agreed to advance legislation prohibiting trade in goods with illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory,” a foreign ministry spokesperson told AFP.

“It is the government’s view that this is an obligation under international law.”

The settlements include residential, agricultural and business interests that lie outside Israel’s internationally recognized borders.

Before the cabinet decision, Foreign Minister Simon Harris told reporters he hoped other EU countries would follow Ireland’s lead.

“What I hope today is when this small country in Europe makes the decision and becomes one of the first countries, and probably the first country, in the Western world to consider legislation in this space, I do hope it inspires other European countries to join us,” said Harris — also Irish deputy prime minister.

Last May, Ireland — along with Spain, Norway and, a month later, Slovenia — recognized the Palestinian state, drawing retaliatory moves from Israel.

Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that Paris might move to recognize a Palestinian state as early as June.

Tuesday’s move by Dublin comes a week after the EU ordered a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a cooperation deal signed in 1995 that forms the basis for trade ties with Israel.

EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas said “a strong majority” of the 27 member states at a foreign ministers’ meeting backed the move in a bid to pressure Israel.

An Irish import ban would be symbolic and of minimal economic impact, as trade volumes with the territories — limited to goods such as fruit, vegetables and timber — were worth less than one million euros ($1.1 million) between 2020 and 2024.

It “breaks a decades-long, failed deadlock at EU level of criticizing the settlements as illegal and a barrier to peace on the one hand, while providing them with crucial economic support on the other,” said Conor O’Neill, head of advocacy and policy at Christian Aid Ireland, who helped draft a previous version of the Irish legislation in 2018.

“After decades of saying and repeating that illegal settlements are totally illegal and that the EU is opposed to them, this is the first time that words are being matched with action,” O’Neill told AFP.

The foreign ministry spokesperson said an update on the draft legislation would be brought to the government “in the coming weeks.”

The bill is not expected to pass into law before autumn.


Israeli strike on south Lebanon kills one: ministry

Israeli strike on south Lebanon kills one: ministry
Updated 42 min 12 sec ago
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Israeli strike on south Lebanon kills one: ministry

Israeli strike on south Lebanon kills one: ministry
  • The ministry said an “Israeli enemy strike” on a motorcycle killed one man in Yater
  • The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike on south Lebanon killed one man on Tuesday, the latest attack despite a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

In a statement, the ministry said an “Israeli enemy strike” on a motorcycle killed one man in Yater, in south Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil district.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack, which came after it said it killed a Hezbollah member in south Lebanon’s Majdal Zoun on Monday.

Israel has continued to launch strikes on its northern neighbor despite the November truce that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of full-blown war.

Under the terms of the ceasefire deal, only UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army should be deployed in southern Lebanon, though Israel has kept its forces in five areas it has declared strategic.

Lebanon has called on the international community to pressure Israel to end its attacks and withdraw all its troops.


UN says it has no information over Gaza aid group deliveries

UN says it has no information over Gaza aid group deliveries
Updated 27 May 2025
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UN says it has no information over Gaza aid group deliveries

UN says it has no information over Gaza aid group deliveries

GENEVA: The United Nations said on Tuesday it had no information on whether the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-backed aid group, had actually delivered any supplies inside the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

The little-known group, which has stirred controversy since surfacing in early May, announced on Monday it had begun distributing truckloads of food in the Gaza Strip.

But officials from the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, and UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said they were unaware whether any aid had actually been distributed.

The UN and international aid agencies have said they will not cooperate with the GHF, amid accusations it is working with Israel without any Palestinian involvement.

“It is a distraction from what is actually needed, which is a reopening of all the crossings in to Gaza; a secure environment within Gaza; and faster facilitation of permissions and final approvals of all the emergency supplies that we have just outside the border that need to get in,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told a press briefing in Geneva.

UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma told journalists aid to Gaza was still “very, very far” from what was needed: a minimum of 500 to 600 trucks per day loaded with food, medical aid, fuel, water and other basic supplies, she said, speaking via video-link from Amman.

Israel, which recently stepped up its offensive against militant group Hamas, drew international condemnation after implementing a blockade on March 2 that has sparked severe food and medical shortages.

Humanitarian aid has begun trickling back into Gaza in recent days after Israel lifted the 11-week blockade.

Touma said no UNRWA supplies had gone in since March 2, while Laerke said he had no information on how many UN trucks had passed through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the last 24 hours, partly because Israel does not allow them to have a fixed presence there.


17 bodies found in abandoned house in Mexico

17 bodies found in abandoned house in Mexico
Updated 27 May 2025
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17 bodies found in abandoned house in Mexico

17 bodies found in abandoned house in Mexico
  • Ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs were used to locate the bodies last week in Irapuato
  • Knives, machetes, pickaxes, and shovels were also found

MEXICO: Missing persons investigators found 17 bodies in an abandoned house in a central Mexican region plagued by criminal violence, the state prosecutor’s office said.

Ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs were used to locate the bodies last week in Irapuato in Guanajuato state, according to a statement released late Monday.

Knives, machetes, pickaxes, and shovels were also found.

Five of the victims — four men and one woman --- have been identified as missing persons, according to prosecutors.

“Their families are being informed,” a Guanajuato state official, Jorge Jimenez, told reporters.

Guanajuato is a thriving industrial hub and home to several popular tourist destinations, but it is also Mexico’s deadliest state due to gang turf wars, according to official homicide statistics.

Criminal violence, most of it linked to drug trafficking, has claimed around 480,000 lives in Mexico since 2006 and left more than 120,000 people missing.

Civil society groups formed by relatives who denounce government inaction risk their own lives searching for remains in unmarked graves, often in areas where cartel gunmen are active.

Much of the violence in Guanajuato is linked to conflict between the Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of the most powerful in the Latin American nation.

Guanajuato recorded more than 3,000 murders last year, the most of any Mexican state, according to official figures.

That was equivalent to just over 10 percent of the nationwide total.


Israeli forces raid foreign exchange stores across West Bank

Israeli forces raid foreign exchange stores across West Bank
Updated 27 May 2025
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Israeli forces raid foreign exchange stores across West Bank

Israeli forces raid foreign exchange stores across West Bank
  • One killed, eight other people were injured by Israeli forces during a raid in Nablus

RAMALLAH: Israeli forces raided foreign exchange stores in several West Bank cities including Ramallah and Nablus on Tuesday, accusing their parent company of “connections with terrorist organizations,” according to an army closure notice.

“Israeli forces are taking action against Al-Khaleej Exchange Company due to its connections with terrorist organizations,” a leaflet left at the company’s Ramallah location read.

An AFP journalist present at the scene reported several army vehicles at the store’s entrance while soldiers came out carrying items covered by a cloth.

Two army vehicles escorted one of the store’s employees away from the premises.

In the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli forces raided a second foreign exchange store belonging to the Al-Khaleej company, as well as a gold store, according to another AFP journalist.

Some Palestinian residents of Nablus were seen clashing with the army during the raid, throwing objects at troops.

The Ramallah-based Ministry of Health said one man was killed and eight other people were injured by Israeli forces’ live ammunition during a raid in Nablus on Tuesday.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it treated 20 people for tear gas inhalation and three others who were injured by rubber bullets.

The Palestinian movement Hamas condemned the raids on foreign exchange shops.

“These assaults on economic institutions, accompanied by the looting of large sums of money and the confiscation of property, are an extension of the piracy policies adopted by the (Israeli) government,” the group said in a statement, adding that the targeted companies were “operating within the law.”