Cardinal Pizzaballa: ‘Gaza is a disaster. Do not leave the Holy Land alone’

By Guglielmo Gallone

“There is a need for empathy toward those who do not think as we do,” said Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, after receiving on Monday, June 29, in Bergamo, Italy, the Limes Prize for Dialogue and Peace, from the Italian geopolitical magazine Limes.

“Gaza is a disaster,” the Cardinal emphasized during his conversation with Limes editor-in-chief Lucio Caracciolo. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem spoke about his visit to the Gaza Strip the previous week, on June 22–23, together with Theophilos III, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem.

“The cities have been razed to the ground, leveled, wiped out. Rafah no longer exists. What strikes me most is traveling along makeshift roads, through tents and sewage. This is where the people of Gaza live,” he explained.

“One thing the images do not convey is the smell. And one of the greatest scourges right now is the rats, which bite. They bite children above all, and Gaza is full of children—you see them everywhere, but instead of going to school, they play, dirty, beside the sewers.”

Cardinal Pizzaballa during his conversation with the Limes editor-in-chief

No sign of improvement

A situation that shows no sign of improvement even after the ceasefire, Cardinal Pizzaballa continued, because “while some food is now able to enter, almost everything else is still prohibited. Dual-use goods are not allowed in. And by dual-use they even mean school desks, pencils, notebooks, and the glass needed for windows. We want to reopen the schools, but we are missing almost everything. We try to make do by recycling whatever pieces we can find here and there.”

“Healthcare workers have told me that what is needed right now is staff trained to handle the psychological trauma experienced by children and mothers,” he emphasized.

“This is an issue that must be handled with the sensitivity it deserves. I’ll say it in a not-very-diplomatic way, but I feel profound sorrow. I just can’t understand.”

Meanwhile, images have emerged of an Israeli airstrike that destroyed dozens of tents sheltering displaced Palestinian families in a densely populated area of the Strip.

Women, children, and people with disabilities were forced to spend the night outdoors. Eight people were reportedly killed in central and southern Gaza, while 2 more were killed north of Khan Younis in a drone strike.

The situation in the occupied territories

The situation is equally dire in the West Bank, in the State of Palestine.

Advertisement

“There is no rule of law,” the Patriarch said, “The law does not apply, and even if it does, it is not meant for Palestinians. Israeli settlers are allowed to do anything. They set up checkpoints everywhere, cut down trees, and prevent people from cultivating their land. Assaults, thefts, and insults have become everyday occurrences.”

These incidents continue largely because they go unpunished: “We often call the Israeli army (IDF) to intervene and restrain the settlers, but by the time they arrive, the settlers have already left—as though someone had warned them—and so the IDF ends up taking it out on us.”

The audience at the event

The effort for dialogue and peace

Yet Cardinal Pizzaballa’s descriptions of Gaza reduced to rubble, children playing beside sewage and being bitten by rats, and settler violence in the West Bank do not prevent him from reflecting on the importance of dialogue.

Its necessity is even greater today because “October 7 remains deeply present in the Jewish and Israeli psyche. Since that day, the last restraints have fallen away,” the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem said.

The Cardinal acknowledged that Israel today “is a mix of things,” where “there is a bit of everything, but—I must say with regret—the most hardline are the religious military.”

“It’s very difficult to have a clear and serene relationship with them,” he continued. “The most extreme elements of the Jewish population are not yet in the majority, but they are gaining support and becoming increasingly influential politically, with consequences that are, however, divisive for Israeli society itself.”

How Israel is changing

Limes’ editor-in-chief, Lucio Caracciolo, referred to the concept of Israeli society being divided into “tribes.” This is an idea advanced by former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in 2015 to describe a society fragmented into four demographic groups living largely parallel lives with separate educational systems and distinct lifestyles: secular Zionists, religious nationalist Jews, the ultra-Orthodox, and Arab Israelis.

This division, together with demographic trends showing the growth of the Haredi population (Ultra-Orthodox Jews who do not recognize the State of Israel), is increasing, “fueling uncertainty within Israeli society, while Israel continues to feel surrounded by Arab countries. This too shapes Israel’s decisions,” the Cardinal explained.

Jerusalem itself is also changing, he highlighted. “It is changing demographically, geographically, but above all in its internal and psychological boundaries. The way people experience the city is changing. Until recently, the Old City of Jerusalem was inhabited predominantly by Arabs. Now it is common to see Jews, including religious Jews, everywhere. The Arab population is growing more slowly, and the Christian community is shrinking.”

“The reason why clashes are on the rise is also linked to this: the fact that people are meeting more often and more easily,” the Cardinal continued.

“We are now living in separate bubbles. In recent years, Jerusalem’s Arab community has participated little in the political developments of Gaza and the West Bank—not because of a lack of solidarity, but because of strict military control and also to protect what remains of Jerusalem’s unique character. The heart of everything is there.”

“We belong to that land”

“We come from years of violent and exclusionary language, from ways of thinking that were underestimated and gradually became widespread,” he said, echoing Pope Leo XIV, who has identified the “crisis of language” as one of the deepest roots of today’s conflicts.

For this reason, the Patriarch’s appeal was directed above all to public opinion and the media.

“Journalism that seeks to help people understand is important. Keep talking about it, and do not follow passing fashions. Newspapers cover it for a while and then stop. That land belongs to us—or rather, we belong to that land.

Advertisement

“Israelis ask us, ‘Why don’t you also speak about South Sudan?’ The answer is simple: because we do not have the same relationship with South Sudan that we have with this land,” Cardinal Pizzaballa said.

“We must not isolate people. There is a need for empathy, for understanding, for dialogue, without erecting new barriers. You must help us climb out of that well and not leave us trapped inside it.”