{"id":290121,"date":"2025-04-25T12:38:04","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T12:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/25\/prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-offers-condolences-3-days-after-pope-francis-died-2\/"},"modified":"2025-04-25T12:38:04","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T12:38:04","slug":"prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-offers-condolences-3-days-after-pope-francis-died-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/25\/prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-offers-condolences-3-days-after-pope-francis-died-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Offers Condolences 3 Days After Pope Francis Died"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/25\/multimedia\/25int-netanyahu-pope-bwvj\/25int-netanyahu-pope-bwvj-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Offers Condolences 3 Days After Pope Francis Died\" title=\"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Offers Condolences 3 Days After Pope Francis Died\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel offered condolences Thursday on the passing of Pope Francis, more than three days after the death of the Roman Catholic world\u2019s leader.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The delay in issuing a statement highlighted apparent tensions in the relationship between Israeli officials and the pope, who pointedly criticized Israel\u2019s conduct in the war in Gaza and repeatedly called for a cease-fire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe State of Israel expresses its deepest condolences to the Catholic Church and the Catholic community worldwide at the passing of Pope Francis,\u201d the office of the Israeli prime minister said in a post on X. \u201cMay he rest in peace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Neither the Hebrew-language X account for the prime minister\u2019s office nor Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s personal account carried the short statement. Mr. Netanyahu usually issues condolence statements shortly after the deaths of world leaders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Francis, who frequently phoned members of Gaza\u2019s dwindling Christian community, took advantage of major addresses to the Catholic world to call for the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza, a cease-fire and the release of hostages held by militants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cMy thoughts go especially to the victims of the many conflicts worldwide, beginning with those in Israel and Palestine,\u201d he said during Easter Sunday Mass in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Since early March, Israel has blocked the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, leaving many people in Gaza struggling to access food.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a book released in November 2024, Francis said the war in Gaza should be investigated to determine whether it constituted a genocide. The statement drew a harsh rebuke from a member of Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s government, Amichai Chikli, the minister of diaspora affairs, who contended it was a \u201ctrivialization\u201d of the term genocide. Israeli officials say that Israel is waging a war against Hamas in Gaza and not civilians. They also argue that it is Hamas that should face charges of genocide <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/12\/30\/world\/middleeast\/israeli-military-hamas-failures.html\" title=\"\">after its attack on Oct. 7<\/a>, 2023, when about 1,200 people were killed in Israel and roughly 250 were taken captive. The pope also met with the families of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">More than 51,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the war began, according to the health ministry in the territory, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2014, Francis visited Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where he called for a \u201csovereign homeland\u201d for Palestinians. He also became the first pontiff to refer to the occupied territory as \u201cthe State of Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Isaac Herzog, Israel\u2019s largely ceremonial president, was one of the first leaders to issue a statement mourning the death of Francis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But on the day of the pope\u2019s death, Israel\u2019s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on X, saying \u201dmay his memory be a blessing.\u201d But shortly thereafter, the ministry deleted the post.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After facing <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ynetnews.com\/article\/bjtuamhyge\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">criticism in Israel<\/a>, the ministry reposted a picture of its ambassador to the Holy See, Yaron Sideman, visiting the pope\u2019s coffin in the Vatican. Ambassador Sideman will represent Israel at the pope\u2019s funeral, according to Oren Marmorstein, the Foreign Ministry spokesman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a statement, Mr. Marmorstein did not explicitly address the deletion of the X post, but emphasized that Israeli diplomats around the world have offered their condolences on social media and signed official condolence books.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Aaron Boxerman<!-- --> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/25\/world\/middleeast\/netanyahu-pope-francis-death-condolences.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel offered condolences Thursday on the passing of Pope Francis, more than three days after the death of the Roman Catholic world\u2019s leader. The delay in issuing a statement highlighted apparent tensions in the relationship between Israeli officials and the pope, who pointedly criticized Israel\u2019s conduct in the war in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/25\/multimedia\/25int-netanyahu-pope-bwvj\/25int-netanyahu-pope-bwvj-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4757,15830,3495,6836,18714,2124,4758,1069,13327,40147,8088,168522,164769],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290123,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290121\/revisions\/290123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}