The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, has expressed his hope that the release of a first group of hostages, which began on 24 November, will help find solutions to end the war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.
Yesterday the four-day ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas came into force, with the aim of the Islamist organization releasing 50 hostages captured on 7 October in exchange for 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons.
This will also allow the entry of humanitarian aid to care for the population of the Gaza Strip, who are suffering due to the fighting.
In an interview published in Vatican News , the Cardinal noted that reaching an “agreement for the release of at least some of the hostages is positive, because until now the only channel of communication was the military.”
“Instead, it is a first step to alleviate both internal and international tension. It is also a way to initiate other solutions other than military ones: I mean solutions to end the conflict,” he added.
The cardinal indicated that “the solution cannot be left only in the hands of the military” and that “politics must take the situation back into its own hands, above all giving perspectives, because the military does not have them.”
“So it is clear that the negotiations, the release of the hostages, are the first steps to then begin paths of political perspectives for Gaza after this war. It is necessary,” she expressed.
During the interview, Cardinal Pizzaballa acknowledged that “it is not easy” to defeat an ideology like that of Hamas, whose objective is to destroy the State of Israel.
To achieve this, “you have to eliminate, little by little, with patience—the times are long—everything that feeds that ideology. The roots must be removed. It is useless to cut the branches, because they can grow back.”
In that sense, he pointed out that “first of all we have to give the Palestinians a perspective. I have already said it and I know that many people have not liked it: we must give them a national perspective that they do not yet have.
As is known, the State of Israel was born in 1948 in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine. The UN resolution of 1947 established that two States would be created in said territory, one of which should be Palestine.
However, the Arab countries’ rejection of the existence of an Israeli State in the Middle East triggered several wars and the birth of terrorist groups such as Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007.
“This war,” lamented the cardinal, “is a very clear testimony that the two peoples cannot live together, at least not at this moment. “They have to have a clear, defined, precise perspective, more than what has been the case until now.”
“Also, there is another aspect. Hamas is also a religious ideology; Therefore, interreligious dialogue is very important, just as it is very important to nourish, to grow, a religious discourse that is not focused on ‘hate,’” he indicated.