Israeli government deletes condolence post over pope’s death

The Israeli government posted, and later deleted, an online message offering condolences over the death of Pope Francis, in a move that has drawn attention amid recent tensions between the Vatican and Israeli officials.

The verified @Israel account on social media platform X published a message that read: “Rest in Peace, Pope Francis. May his memory be a blessing,” accompanied by an image of the Pope during a 2014 visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The post was removed shortly after it went live.

 The Jerusalem Post quoted officials at the foreign ministry as saying that the pope had made “statements against Israel” and that the social media post had been published in “error”.

Francis, who died on Monday aged 88, suggested last November that the global community should study whether Israel’s military campaign in Gaza constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people, in some of his most explicit criticism yet of Israel’s conduct in its war with Hamas that began in October 2023.

In January the pope also called the humanitarian situation in Gaza ‘shameful’, prompting criticism from Rome’s chief Jewish rabbi who accused Francis of “selective indignation”.

Israel says accusations of genocide in its Gaza campaign are baseless and that it is solely hunting down Hamas and other armed groups.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who leads a far-right coalition of religious and nationalist parties, has not commented on the pope’s death.

Francis in 2014 visited the Western Wall, the most sacred prayer site in Judaism, and also prayed at a section of a wall built by Israel in the occupied West Bank dividing Jerusalem and Bethlehem.