VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis for the first time tackled claims of the Zionist entity’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in extracts from a forthcoming book published Sunday, urging further investigation into whether the Zionist entity’s actions meet the definition. Titled “Hope Never Disappoints. Pilgrims Towards a Better World”, the book includes his latest and most forthright intervention into the more than year-long war.

“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of genocide,” the pontiff wrote in extracts published on the front of Italy’s La Stampa daily on Sunday. “It should be studied carefully to determine whether (the situation) corresponds to the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies,” he added.

The Argentine pontiff has frequently deplored the number of victims of the Zionist entity’s operations in Gaza, with the territory’s health ministry putting the toll at least 43,846

people, most of them civilians. But his call for a probe marks the first time he has publicly used the term genocide in the context of Zionist military operations in the Palestinian territory.

On the pope’s account on X Sunday, he wrote: “Let us #PrayTogether for peace: in martyred Ukraine, in Palestine, (the Zionist entity), Lebanon, Myanmar, and Sudan. War dehumanizes, leading us to tolerate unacceptable crimes. May leaders listen to the cry of the people who long for peace.” The new book by the pope comes out Tuesday in Italy, Spain and Latin America, with other releases elsewhere due later.

Francis has not previously described the situation in Gaza as a genocide in public. But last year he was at the centre of a messy dispute after a meeting with a group of Palestinians at the Vatican, who insisted he had used the word with them in private, while the Vatican said he had not.

On Thursday, a United Nations Special Committee judged the Zionist entity’s conduct of warfare in Gaza “consistent with the characteristics of genocide”, accusing the country of “using starvation as a method of war”. It is, however, not the first time the Zionist entity has been the subject of genocide accusations since the start of the war. South Africa brought a genocide case before the International Court of Justice with the support of several countries, including Turkey, Spain and Mexico. – Agencies