Pope Francis met with Israeli and Palestinian delegations. “They are suffering a lot,” he said, asking for prayers for peace.
The Pope met with two delegations, one Israeli and one Palestinian, on the sidelines of Wednesday’s general audience. “Because of wars you suffer, but here we went beyond wars: this is not war, it is terrorism. Please let us pray for peace,” Pope Francis told participants in the general audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall. in the Vatican.
“This morning I received two delegations, one of Israelis who have family members hostage in Gaza and the other of Palestinians whose family members are imprisoned in Israel. They are suffering so much, I saw how they both suffer”, said the pope, who launched a new appeal to the faithful to pray for peace.
“Pray a lot for peace. May the Lord help us to solve the problems. We pray for the Palestinian people, we pray for the Israeli people, for peace to come,” said the pope. He also asked for prayers for Ukraine.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, recently said he was ready to make himself available for an exchange and thus free the kidnapped children. The meeting with the families of the hostages and the Pope had been prepared for weeks, as Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, recently explained. A group of family members traveled to several European capitals after the Hamas attack to draw the attention of governments and civil society to the need to do everything possible to save the lives of the hostages. (APA)