In the most prominent front-page article in its January 13 edition, L’Osservatore Romano published a lengthy interview with Philippe Lazzarini, a UN official who had briefed the Pope on the suffering of Palestinians.
Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), told the Vatican newspaper that “today, in the Gaza Strip, all universities have been destroyed, 80% of our schools have been damaged or completely destroyed. Furthermore, we have more than 600,000 boys and girls of primary and secondary school age who are currently living among the rubble.”
Lazzarini added:
It’s not new that international law is trampled upon. What is new is the claim to systematically trample upon it so openly, without even trying to deny it. And that is exactly what happened in the context of Gaza …
Today, international law is ailing, and we must stand by its bedside. But we must not abandon it, because the alternative, if we no longer had rules to refer to, would be barbarism.
Lazzarini described the Pope’s words of support for suffering Palestinians as “extremely important … The Palestinian population has the impression that, in a sense, the international community has turned its back on them. And I think that this message of compassion and solidarity from the Holy Father radiates far beyond the Christian populations of the region.”