Pope Francis has used his Christmas Day address to call for aid to be sent to Gaza, where he said the humanitarian situation is “extremely grave”.
The pontiff delivered his traditional Urbi et Orbi – to the city and world – message to a congregation at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, in which he called for peace in the Middle East.
Francis, who is celebrating his 12th Christmas as Pope, has recently grown more critical of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, describing it last week as “cruelty”, which prompted objections from Israeli diplomats.
In his address, he called for “sounds of arms be silenced in the Middle East” and talked of “the dear community of Gaza where the humanitarian situation is extremely grave”. He was referring to Catholics at the Holy Family Church in Gaza city.
“May there be a ceasefire, may the hostages be released and aid be given to people worn out by hunger and by war,” the 88-year-old Pope told the crowd.
He said went on to “express my closeness to the Christian community in Lebanon, especially in the south, and to that in Syria at this most delicate time” and expressed as desire for “the doors of dialogue and peace be flung open throughout the region, devastated by conflict”.
Pope Francis's plea comes as Israeli army intensified attacks on the health system in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, where troops evicted patients from the Indonesian Hospital, the health ministry in the Palestinian enclave said.
Patients from the Indonesian Hospital, one of the few centres that are at least partially functioning, moved south towards Gaza city, some of them on foot, after troops forced entry on Tuesday morning, official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, quoting witnesses.
The World Health Organisation said it delivered 5,000 litres of fuel and 100 units of blood to the hospital at the weekend. Eight patients were transferred to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza city.
Israel continued attacks elsewhere in Gaza on Tuesday, killing at least nine people, including a member of the civil emergency service, in four separate strikes, medics said.
Meanwhile the Commissioner General of the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees Philippe Lazzarini on Monday said the “clock is ticking” for the children of Gaza as the war continues amid stalled ceasefire negotiations.
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which nearly 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza.
The Pope’s reference to Christians in Syria comes as hundreds of people took to the streets in Christian areas of Damascus to protest the burning of a Christmas tree in a Syrian town, just over two weeks after Islamist-led rebels ousted Bashar Al Assad.
Protesters gathered spontaneously from neighbourhoods on Christmas Eve to express their fears. Some carried wooden crosses and others waved the green, white and black Free Syria flag adopted by the country’s new administration.
Since the early days of the Israel- Gaza conflict in October 2023, Pope Francis has made daily phone calls to the Holy Family Church.
Priests and nuns have gathered over recent months to listen to the Pope speak.
“Every day the Pope calls us, he prays for all of us and comforts us,” Sister Nabila Saleh, of the Rosary Sisters School in Gaza, told The National. “Pope Francis is working to make peace possible. We know we are in his prayers.”
