Freed Gaza Hostages Meet with Pope Francis; Israel Praises His "Closeness" to Them
The Vatican acknowledged a new report accusing Israel of human rights violations and war crimes but has not yet commented on it.
By Gary Gately
A delegation of Israelis who had been held hostage in Gaza and their relatives met with Pope Francis at the Vatican Thursday, some of them sharing with him photos or other reminders of their loved ones still in captivity.
Those attending the private meeting included 16 people freed since being captured by Hamas during its October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel — 10 women, four men and two children.
Yaron Sideman, Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See, said in a post on X (formerly Twitter): “The meeting was moving and showed the Pope’s closeness to the victims of that horrible day and his commitment to their release.”
Louis Har, an Argentine-Israeli freed during an Israeli raid in February, shed tears of joy over meeting the 87-year-old Francis, a native of Buenos Aires.
“I felt his sincerity, his care and that we didn’t come in vain,” Har said at a press conference after the meeting. “There is someone listening to us. I hope that his prayers and his message will reach the whole world because he has an impact on the whole world.”
Family members of hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza called on President Biden and President-elect Donald Trump to work together on a deal to bring the hostages home.
“This is not about left and right,” said Sharone Lifschitz, whose father, Oded Lifschitz, is still being held in Gaza, but whose mother, Yocheved Lifschitz, was released on October 23, 2023. “We hope that Biden and Trump work together now to get the hostages back before the winter.”
At the Vatican meeting, Pope Francis shook hands with Lifschitz as she showed him a poster-size photo of her father with the words “Bring him home now!”
"The pope has been very kind to us,” Lifschitz said afterward. “He has promised to continue to pray for each and every one of the hostages.”
Adi Shoham and her children, Naveh and Yahel, gave Francis a soccer jersey bearing the name of Adi’s husband, Tal Shoham, a big soccer fan who is still being held in Gaza.
The mother and her two children, along with three of their relatives, had been among about 250 people captured by Hamas when the Palestinian militant group attacked Israel, but were released last November. During its terrorist attack, Hamas killed Adi Shoham’s father, Avshalom Haran, one of her aunts and one of her uncles.
Naveh, who lives in southern Israel, has exchanged letters with Francis since first writing to the pope in June. The boy, now 9, told the pope how much he misses his dad and shared his love for soccer (called “football” in Israel), the horror of being taken hostage with his family and his grief over Hamas killing his grandfather, a great-aunt and a great-uncle.
In the June letter, first published by Ynet, Naveh wrote: “I also often think about the children in Gaza and wish the war would stop…. I asked my mother if the children in Gaza also play football and if she thinks I can join them. But unfortunately, that was not possible then. But still, I think it would be better if we played football together instead of shooting at each other.”
Pope Francis wrote back: “Yes, you are right when you say that it would be better to play football together instead of shooting at each other. You are still young, but your words are wise. I wish that the great and powerful of this world would think like you!”
More than 43,000 people have been killed in Gaza, over half of them women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilian and military casualties.
Hamas is still holding about 65 Israeli hostages, as well as the remains of about 35 killed during the October 7, 2023, attack or while in captivity, according to the Israeli government.
Pope Francis has repeatedly called for a ceasefire, the return of hostages and the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The Jesuit pontiff has criticized Hamas for its “terrorism” targeting Israel and in September told reporters that Israel’s attacks on Gaza and southern Lebanon have been “immoral” and disproportionate, going beyond the “rules of war.”
And on the one-year anniversary of the start of the war, Francis condemned “the shameful inability of the international community and the most powerful countries to silence the weapons and put an end to the tragedy of war.”
Israel has faced growing international condemnation amid a calamitous humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and a coalition of relief agencies warns of the “imminent” danger of famine in northern Gaza.
On Thursday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a scathing, 154-page report accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel’s attacks on Gaza have led to the displacement of 1.9 million Palestinians, over 90 percent of the population of Gaza, and the widespread destruction of much of the territory, according to the report.
It said Israeli forces’ relentless and deliberate demolitions of homes and civilian infrastructure would likely “permanently displace” many Palestinians.
“The Israeli government cannot claim to be keeping Palestinians safe when it kills them along escape routes, bombs so-called safe zones, and cuts off food, water and sanitation,” Nadia Hardman, a refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Israel has blatantly violated its obligation to ensure Palestinians can return home, razing virtually everything in large areas….
“No one can be in denial about the atrocity crimes the Israeli military is committing against Palestinians in Gaza,” Hardman said
The report called on the U.S., Germany and other countries to immediately suspend weapons transfers and other military assistance to Israel and adopt sanctions against the nation.
But Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson for Israel's ministry of foreign affairs, posted on X that the HRW report is “completely false and detached from reality.”
Marmorstein added: “Israel's efforts are directed solely at dismantling Hamas's terror capabilities and not at the people of Gaza, unlike Hamas, which uses civilians as human shields and embeds terror infrastructure within residential areas.”
He said Israel “remains fully committed to facilitating the continuous flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza” and “views all civilian harm as a tragedy, while Hamas views all civilian harm as a strategy.”
Vatican News, run by the Holy See’s Press Office, posted a short item online about the HRW report Thursday but has not commented beyond that.
The U.S. State Department said Tuesday that it has no plans to reduce military aid to Israel despite eight international aid groups saying that the Mideast nation had failed to meet a 30-day U.S. deadline to undertake "urgent and sustained actions" to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
While acknowledging that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is “very dire,” Vedant Patel, the State Department’s deputy spokesman, told reporters the department has “not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of US law.”
He said Israel has made “some progress,” adding: “Most importantly, we are going to continue to watch how these steps that they’ve taken, how they are being implemented, how they can be continued to be expanded on, and through that, we’re going to continue to assess their compliance with U.S. law.”
Then, on Thursday, Patel took issue with a new United Nations report accusing Israel of “using starvation as a weapon of war” in Gaza, “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.”
“That is something we would unequivocally disagree with,” Patel told reporters. “We think that kind of phrasing and those kinds of accusations are certainly unfounded, as it relates to the humanitarian situation.”