Pope Francis said that both parties “struggle so much” during his separate meetings on Wednesday with the families of Palestinian inmates in Israel and Israeli hostages in Gaza.
The 86-year-old pope disclosed that he had received two delegations: “one of Israelis who have relatives as hostages in Gaza, and another of Palestinians who have relatives held prisoner in Israel”—at the conclusion of his weekly audience at the Vatican.
“They suffer a lot and I heard how they both suffer,” he said, urging those gathered in St Peter’s Square to pray for peace.
“Wars do this, but here we have gone beyond wars. This is not war, this is terrorism,” he said, without specifying whether he was referring to the October 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas, Israel’s military operation in Gaza launched in response, or both.
Last week, the Vatican announced that the pope sought to demonstrate his “spiritual closeness” during the private sessions, describing them as “exclusively humanitarian in nature”.
It referred to the pope’s previous remarks that “every human being, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, of any people or religion, every human being is sacred, is precious in the eyes of God and has the right to live in peace” .
After weeks of all-out fighting, Israel and Hamas announced a deal on Wednesday that would liberate dozens of Palestinian inmates and at least 50 hostages, as well as grant the beleaguered people of Gaza a four-day truce.
According to the Israeli government, the deadliest cross-border incident in Israel’s history was carried out on October 7 by Hamas gunmen, leaving almost 1,200 people dead—the majority of them civilians.
An estimated 240 Israelis and foreigners, including elderly and small children, were also taken hostage by Hamas and other Palestinian armed organizations.
Israel retaliated by launching a massive bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza, killing 14,100 people, many of them children, according to the Hamas authority.
