Probe into possible Gaza genocide says pope in new book

(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 17 - The international community should investigate whether Israel is perpetrating a genocide in Gaza, Pope Francis says in a new book excerpted in an Italian newspaper Sunday.
    "According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide," Francis says in the book "Hope Never Disappoints. Pilgrims towards a Better World", to be released for the Jubilee 2025 and of which the newspaper La Stampa previews some excerpts today.
    "It should be investigated carefully to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international organizations".
    The volume, edited by Hernán Reyes Alcaide (Edizioni Piemme), will be released on Tuesday in Italy, Spain and Latin America, and will then be published in various other countries.
    The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says 43,846 people, many of them women and children, have been killed in the Strip in an Israeli assault since the October 7, 2023 attacks by the Islamist militants in southern Israel which killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages in the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
    In the book, the 87-year-old Argentine pontiff also says that people are becoming inhumane in the face of today's migrations.
    Faced with the challenge of migration, Francis says, "no country can be left alone and no one can think of addressing the issue in isolation through more restrictive and repressive laws, sometimes approved under the pressure of fear or in search of electoral advantages.
    "On the contrary, just as we see that there is a globalization of indifference, we must respond with the globalization of charity and cooperation, so that the conditions of emigrants are humanized". (ANSA).