Pope Francis Calls For ‘Peace In Israel And Palestine’

The supreme head of the Roman Catholic church; Pope Francis has pleaded for “a stop to the armed attacks” as fighting between Hamas and Israeli soldiers in southern Israel close to the Gaza border continues and Israeli jets continue to target structures in Gaza City. “Pray for peace in Israel and Palestine,” he urged people everywhere.

Pope Francis made his considered appeal when he welcomed tens of thousands of tourists in St. Peter’s Square at noon on Sunday. He started out by saying that he was following “with apprehension and pain…what is happening in Israel where the violence exploded even more rapidly causing hundreds of deaths and wounded,” alluding to the unprovoked attack by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip the day before on Israel.

“I express my closeness to the families of the victims,” he said. “I pray for them and for all those who are living through hours of terror and anxiety.”

“Let the armed attacks stop, please,” he said. “Let it be understood that terrorism and war bring no solution but only death and the suffering of many innocent people. War is a defeat. Every war is a defeat. Let us pray that there be peace in Israel and in Palestine.”

He called on people to pray the rosary in the month of October for an end to the many conflicts in the world, and especially the one in “beloved Ukraine, which is suffering much and is martyred.”

Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, which marks the end of the yearly cycle of public Torah readings. It happened the day following the 50th anniversary of the start of the 1973 War, which was fought by Egypt and Syria and was sparked by a surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the most important holiday for Jews.

According to the BBC, the Israeli attacks on Gaza have resulted in over 320 deaths and close to 2,000 injuries, while the Hamas offensive left over 400 Israelis dead and close to 1,000 more injured in a conflict that many worry may worsen. Israel claimed to have killed 400 Hamas terrorists.

The BBC and Israeli sources report that 100 Israeli hostages, including military and civilians, have been taken by Hamas into Gaza. According to BBC commentators, the hostages could be used as negotiating chips to secure the release of the majority, if not all, of the 6,000 Palestinians who are now being held in Israeli prisons. Israel claimed Israeli forces had arrested Palestinian militants.

The attack came from the Gaza Strip, the most densely populated place in the world with a population of over two million people in an area of 141 square miles, which the Latin Patriarch, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, described as “an open-air prison,” in response to a question from America on Sept. 28, referring to the fact that Israel controls all that goes in and out. Today, according to the BBC, Israel cut off the supply of electricity as it pounded the city with aerial bombardments.

The situation that provoked the attack “is a fruit of the disengagement of various formerly important actors, the United States in particular,” a senior Vatican source told America, referring to the lack of any serious initiative in recent times to seek a negotiated solution to the decades-old conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Cardinal Pizzaballa, in Rome for the Synod on Synodality, told Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Catholic bishops’ conference, that he “fear[ed] the situation could get much worse” and feared “the extension of the conflict” because of the kidnapping of Israeli hostages.

“It’s necessary to stop the violence first of all,” he said, “and then put diplomatic pressure to prevent the vicious cycle of retaliation developing from which it is difficult to exit.” He said the occupied territories “are always like a volcano ready to explode” and there is “reciprocal mistrust” between Palestinians and Israelis. “It’s time to find different solutions,” he insisted. Religious leaders for their part should seek “to calm [the] souls of people.”