Cardinal Offers Himself To Hamas In Exchange For Israeli Child Hostages
Pope Francis’ top representative in the Middle East has offered to trade himself to Hamas in exchange for the Israeli children kidnapped by the terrorist group during last week’s massacre in Israel.
On October 7, Hamas slaughtered at least 1,300 Israelis and at least 27 Americans in a horrific surprise attack on Israel. The terrorist group also took hundreds of hostages, including Israeli children.
During a video conference with journalists in Italy on Monday, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa declared that he has “total willingness” to trade himself to “bring the children home.”
“I am ready for an exchange, anything, if this can lead to freedom, to bring the children home,” he told reporters, according to the New York Post. “No problem. There is total willingness on my part.”
“The first thing to do is to try to win the release of the hostages, otherwise there will be no way of stopping [an escalation],” Pizzaballa added. “We are willing to help, even me personally.”
Pizzaballa serves as the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem — where he has spoken out against Hamas’ vicious attack on civilians, while expressing concern for the innocent lives taken. The Cardinal has also expressed concern about the fate of Christians in the Gaza Strip — estimating that there are roughly 1,000.
“What we saw last week in South Israel was dramatic, horrific and barbaric,” Pizzaballa said Saturday, according to Daily Wire correspondent Bree Dail. “Now what we’re seeing occurring in Gaza is extremely problematic — I’m very concerned about our (Christian) community. This war will have a big impact on the faithful there, and with the disorder of the situation, we don’t know where many are.”
“We have a little less than a thousand Christians in Gaza, but we don’t have any place (for them) to go,” Pizzaballa added. “We have no place for them to evacuate to on that side of the border, and for the many disabled, the elderly, we have no way to transport them even if we did have a place. So we are powerless in this moment.”
The Cardinal also stated that this moment is not the time do demand Israel make a peace deal with terrorists.
“Right now, to talk about ‘dialogue’ in this moment is something not realistic, not concrete or practical,” Pizzaballa said. “We have to stop the violence, the war, and then see what we can do, after the ruins of this war are in front of us.”
“This crisis is showing us that religion has a very strong determining influence in all of what we are witnessing and what is happening,” the Cardinal continued. “It is very important that inter-religious dialogue find new paths — it’s not easy, of course — there are a lot of different approaches, and amongst Jews and Muslims, they don’t have one authority that oversees each religion, recognized by all. This is, however, our future challenge. Our society is becoming more fractured — multicultural, multi-religious — and we need to learn how to better live together. This cannot be done if we don’t talk with one another.”
