Pope Francis reflected on the tragic consequences of the war in Gaza in his speech at the Vatican on Saturday, expressing deep sorrow for the bombing of children in the Gaza Strip the previous day.
“This is cruelty. This is not a war. I want to say this because it touches my heart,” said the visibly moved pope, who leads the 1.4 billion members of the Catholic Church around the world.
The Pope also noted that Israeli airstrikes prevented Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the representative of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, from entering Gaza.
“Yesterday, the patriarch was not allowed to enter Gaza, as they promised,” he told members of the Roman Curia, the Vatican’s administrative body.
On Friday during an interview, Pope Francis described the war in Gaza as involving “criminal acts,” and drew parallels to the war in Ukraine.
He condemned actions in both conflicts that violated the laws of conventional warfare, calling them “not war, but criminal acts,” according to the Vatican News portal.
Since October 2023, Israel has been fighting the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza, where, according to Palestinian figures, more than 45,100 people have been killed so far.
The war began with the killing of 1,200 people and the capture of about 250 hostages on October 7, 2023 in Israel by Palestinian terrorists and other coastal groups.
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