Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 22, 2023 / 10:41 am
The Israeli ambassador to the Holy See accused the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem of “blood libel” for saying that two Christian women in Gaza had been intentionally killed “in cold blood” by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
In an interview with Crux published Dec. 22, the ambassador, Raphael Schutz, denied that IDF soldiers targeted the women.
Schutz said: “I find it very annoying that the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem very fast, a few hours after the incident, without an inquiry, lashed into publishing a text naming Israel as a country of murder, the IDF as murderers in ‘cold blood,’ which is basically a blood libel. Nobody in Israel does that intentionally.”
He told Crux: “It might be true technically that the women were shot by IDF forces, although this has not been 100% established.” Schutz said that “even if this is true, this has not been done by malice, or intentionally; it was a mistake like others during the war.”