Today, we pay tribute to Pope Francis.
He welcomed refugees & the homeless where others turned their backs.
He called for peace — in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, the DRC & beyond — where others cheered for war.
His humanity is an inspiration to us all, and he will be greatly missed.
“This is cruelty, this is not war,” Pope Francis told an audience of members of the government of the Holy See, condemning the killing of children in Gaza by Israeli forces. The Israeli attack on Friday left seven children from one family dead.
“Perhaps we need to realize more clearly that civilian victims are not ‘collateral damage’.
These are men and women, with names and surnames, who lose their lives. They are children who are orphaned and deprived of their future. They are individuals who suffer from hunger, thirst and cold, or are mutilated as an effect of the power of modern explosives.
Were we to be able to look each of them in the eye, call them by name, and learn something of their personal history, we would see war for what it is: nothing other than an immense tragedy, a ‘useless slaughter’, one that offends the dignity of every person on this earth.” -@Pontifex
@ABaerbock @Bundeskanzler@Keir_Starmer@DavidLammy@POTUS@SecBlinken
Blueprint of Destruction: Israeli airstrikes target residential areas, destroying homes & displacing over 1.2M people. US-made bombs fuel devastation, forcing Lebanon to resist an unjust peace deal. This is ethnic cleansing, not diplomacy. - Craig Murray - https://t.co/i125WtiU59
Setting Up In Beirut - I apologise for the break, I have been setting up in Beirut to cover the Israeli assault from here.
This has been quite a logistic challenge. I am accompanied by Niels Ladefoged, the cinematographer with Wikileaks who was with https://t.co/wnIO52j2VG
URGENT APPEAL: We must try to save the life of Al Jazeera cameraman Fadi Al-Wahidi-he is in urgent need of international transfer after being shot in the neck by an Israeli sniper while reporting. Get #SaveFadiAl_Wahidi trending
Have you read the Julian #Assange's #PleaAgreement? If not, you should:
https://t.co/T9setUL6O7
Remember the demonization campaign "#WikiLeaks put lives at risk"?
In the #Plea,the US write:
"The United States has not identified any victim qualifying for individual restitution"
Julian did not break down.
They could not break him - even as they threw everything at him.
He wore them down.
That's what Epic Resistance is all about.
https://t.co/3z4kaX7vEK
We have proved that freeing Julian was not impossible. Now it is time to prove that freeing Palestine is also not impossible. FREE JULIAN. FREE PALESTINE https://t.co/xDkQvu7rxx
Please read this from the head of mission for Doctors Without Borders, one of the most noble groups around.
I have a lot of people in my life who support Israel. I don't hold a caricature that all Israel supporters are monstrous. But this is monstrous:
"The US should not issue assurances, they should drop this shameful case that should never have been brought.
Julian Assange is a political prisoner. He is a publisher & he is being punished for expressing freedom of the press in its purest form."—@Stella_Assange#FreeAssangeNOW
The world’s media are prevented from reporting from inside Gaza. If we had seen the daily reality there in detail, I suspect the international pressure on Israel would have been even stronger than it is.