Israel/Hamas Attacks: Pope Urges End To Hostilities

As hostility rages between Israel and Palestinian militants, Pope Francis has called for an end to the attacks.

He warned that terrorism and war do not lead to a solution.

The Pope, who spoke yesterday at St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican, specifically called for a cessation of attacks in Israel.

He said all war is a defeat, urging all of them to pray for peace in Israel and Palestine.

However, he refrained from directly mentioning the Gaza Strip or the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which launched a significant surprise assault on Saturday.

“I follow with apprehension and pain what is happening in Israel. I express my solidarity with the families of the victims,” he told crowds after his traditional Angelus prayer.

“I pray for all those who are living through hours of terror and anguish. May the attacks and the weapons cease, I beg you.

“Terrorism and war do not lead to a solution, but only to the death and suffering of many innocent people,” he said.

Meanwhile, the death toll from the conflict has exceeded 1,000 with over 600 Israelis and 413 Palestinians killed.

LEADERSHIP reports that the clashes broke out after Hamas attacked Israel on Saturday with a barrage of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, killing 22 people.

Consequently, Israel retaliated as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed, saying: “Our enemy will pay a price the type of which it has never known. We are in a war and we will win it.”

Israeli government said yesterday that more than 600 Israelis have been killed and 100 kidnapped with

2,000 injured in attacks from Gaza since Saturday.

Also, Palestinian officials said the retaliatory Israeli air strikes have killed at least 413 people in the Gaza Strip, with 2,300 wounded.

The United States (US) Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, had said the country’s received reports that several Americans have died in Israel and that officials were trying to verify those reports.

Blinken has been speaking to CNN about the major attack on Israel by Palestinian militants.

He said the US is “likely” to give details on new military assistance for Israel later today, he says. “Our first focus is to make sure Israel has what it needs.

According to reports, the US has announced more support for Israel by sending munitions and boosting forces in the region, while British PM Rishi Sunak says the UK is one of Israel’s “strongest allies.”

The wave of attacks launched by the Hamas militant group on Saturday morning was the biggest escalation in decades between the two sides.

This is just as the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi on Sunday spoke with the leader of Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad (PIJ) after the latest developments, state media in Iran reports.

“Raisi discussed the developments in Palestine in separate phone calls with Ziyad al-Nakhalah, secretary general of the Islamic Jihad Movement, and Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the (Hamas) political bureau,” state news agency IRNA reported, without giving further details.

Iran had hailed the Palestinian attack and called it a “proud operation” and a “great victory”.

“This victorious operation, which will facilitate and accelerate the collapse of the Zionist regime, promises the impending destruction of the Zionist regime,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“I am congratulating this great and strategic victory, which is a serious warning to all compromisers in the region,” he added in a letter to Hamas and Islamic Jihad on Saturday.

Report says, the Islamic republic hosted talks with leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in June.

At the time, Raisi said Israel was seeking to normalise ties with more Arab and Muslim countries “to discourage young Palestinians from (seeking to) liberate the occupied territories”, according to the Iranian presidency.