Israel snubs Pope’s funeral as church groups back Hague challenge

The former Israeli Ambassador to the Holy See Raphael Schutz said this was the wrong way ‘to express your dissatisfaction with the deceased pope’.

Pax Christi International, the Amos Trust, Sabeel-Kairos UK and Quakers in Britain were among 30 Christian organisations to demand action on the UN General Assembly’s resolution that Israel must end its unlawful presence in Palestine.

In an open letter on 22 April, six months after the resolution, they called on global leaders to “uphold their legal and moral responsibilities” and maintain international law, halting arms sales to Israel and trade with illegal Israeli settlements.  The letter set out Israel’s breaches of international humanitarian law, including the destruction of Palestinian homes and the systematic expansion of settlements.

It preceded the start of proceedings in The Hague on Monday, where the International Court of Justice began hearing evidence ahead of ruling on Israel’s humanitarian obligations to Palestinians facing its total blockade on Gaza. The World Health Organisation director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Gaza faced “an awful and grim moment” if aid is not allowed into the region.

The Washington-based Churches for Middle East Peace condemned the intensifying attacks on Gaza. “The mounting death toll and extreme humanitarian crisis in Gaza requires an immediate resumption of the ceasefire,” the group said, and decried the displacement of Palestinians since operations began in January affecting refugee camps in the West Bank around the cities of Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem.

Israel did not send an official delegation to Pope Francis’ funeral on 26 April, limiting its representation to its Ambassador to the Holy See Yaron Sideman. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office deleted a message of condolence published on social media shortly after the Pope’s death and only issued another several days later.

Sideman’s predecessor Raphael Schutz said this was the wrong way “to express your dissatisfaction with the deceased pope” and “created yet another display of political isolation” from the Christian world.

“When a leader of this magnitude passes away, you don’t deviate from diplomatic protocols,” he told the Ynet news outlet. “We should discuss our disagreements with the Vatican directly with the Vatican, not by boycotting the funeral.”

Palestinians commemorated Pope Francis, remembering the image of him praying before the boundary wall that surrounds Bethlehem and his daily calls to the Holy Family Catholic parish in Gaza, as “a father who never abandons his children”.

The Vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land Fr Ibrahim Faltas OFM said Francis “leaves us with a great responsibility and a great gift: the courage to love”. 

“Until his last breath, Pope Francis had thoughts and concerns for the Holy Land and for the wars in the world,” he said, referring to his Urbi et Orbi message on Easter Sunday. “Until his last breath, he called for a ceasefire. The Holy Father always courageously denounced those who build and sell instruments of death, those who have an interest in continuing war to conquer territories and destroy lives, and those who do not take responsibility for peace.”

Dr Munther Isaac, the pastor of Bethlehem’s Lutheran church, said Palestinians had lost a “dear friend” who was “beloved in Palestine”. Pope Francis, Isaac said, “conveyed true compassion to Palestinians, most notably to those in Gaza”, and “his pastoral heart was evident in his insistence on calling the Christian community besieged in Gaza on a constant basis, even from his hospital”. The Holy Family congregation watched Francis’ funeral broadcast on a screen in their church on Saturday.

Francis thanked Gaza parish in final call on Holy Saturday

Pope Francis and the Jewish people

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