Pizzaballa: ‘Gaza is a disaster; the cities have been razed to the ground and wiped out’

“Gaza is a disaster.” This was stated by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, in conversation with the editor of Limes, Lucio Caracciolo, recounting his visit to the Strip last week: ‘The cities,’ he says in dramatic terms, as reported by the Vatican media, ‘have been razed to the ground, levelled, wiped out. Rafah no longer exists. What strikes me most is travelling along makeshift roads, amidst tents and sewage. This is where the people of Gaza live. One aspect that the images do not convey is the smells. And one of the most pervasive scourges at the moment is the rats, which bite. They bite children in particular, and Gaza is full of children.”

“We are ready to immediately establish three settlements in the northern Gaza Strip, as soon as the Prime Minister gives the go-ahead,” said Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in a video posted on social media. As reported by The Times of Israel, Smotrich made these remarks during a visit yesterday to Sderot, an Israeli community on the border with the Gaza Strip. The minister appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging him to ‘give his approval’ to the project, in order to ‘complete the mission of restoring security for residents in the south’ of Israel. Furthermore, the Times of Israel reports, Smotrich argued that the IDF should control more than 70 per cent of the territory of the Gaza Strip, over which it already exercises dominance.

 According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas, eight people have been killed and 26 injured in Israeli military attacks in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours. Also according to the ministry’s figures, 1,053 people have been killed and 3,406 injured since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel came into force in October. Only 786 bodies are reported to have been recovered. Since the start of the war in Gaza, the Ministry of Health has reported that Israel has killed 73,066 Palestinians and injured 173,514.

COGAT, the Israeli Ministry of Defence body responsible for the Territories, has instead reported that Israel has allowed over 100 civilians to leave the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom crossing to receive medical treatment abroad. “During the journey, the group was held up for over an hour at a checkpoint set up by Hamas terrorists. The United Nations also reported the incident, condemning the delay in the medical evacuation and the damage caused to the humanitarian process,” stated COGAT. “Since the start of the war, around 50,000 Palestinian civilians have been authorised to leave the Strip for third countries, the majority of whom are patients in need of medical treatment and their carers. Furthermore, since the start of the ceasefire, the Rafah crossing has been operational. To date, 4,100 people have entered the Gaza Strip via the crossing and 4,400 have left,” the Coordination wrote on X.

Meanwhile, the IDF and Shin Bet have announced the killing of an Islamic Jihad militant believed to be the leader of a cell that infiltrated Israel during the massacre on 7 October and who, during the war, is said to have been involved in the taking of hostages. The attack took place on Sunday in the south of the Gaza Strip: the target was Talal Jaber Mohammad Abd al-Aal, who had also held various positions within the Islamic Jihad organisation. Prior to the strike, the IDF stated that it had taken measures to minimise harm to civilians, including the use of precision munitions and aerial surveillance.