Pope Francis Decries Israel's Military Offensive in Gaza and "Shameful" Humanitarian Crisis
The pontiff's comments came in his wide-ranging "State of the World" address to diplomats to the Holy See.
This story has been updated.
By Gary Gately
Pope Francis on Thursday sharply criticized Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, calling the humanitarian crisis in the territory “very serious and shameful” and denouncing the bombing of civilians and hospitals.
In his annual “State of the World” address to about 185 global ambassadors representing their countries at the Holy See, Francis said: “We cannot in any way accept the bombing of civilians or the attacking of infrastructures necessary for their survival.
“We cannot accept that children are freezing to death because hospitals have been destroyed or a country’s energy network has been hit,” he added, in an apparent reference to five babies the Gaza health ministry said died in the cold during the last week of December.
Just after beginning the wide-ranging address at the Vatican, the 88-year-old Jesuit pontiff explained that he was recovering from a cold and gave the text to an aide to read.
In his address, Francis wrote: “I renew my appeal for a ceasefire and the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, where there is a very serious and shameful humanitarian situation, and I ask that the Palestinian population receive all the aid it needs…. War is always a failure!”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry criticized Francis’ comments, saying in a statement emailed to The Catholic Observer: “The Pope’s remarks are particularly disappointing, as they are disconnected from the true and factual context of Israel’s fight against jihadist terrorism — a multi-front war that was forced upon it starting on October 7.” That’s a reference to the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel in which the militant group killed 1,200 civilians and took about 250 hostages. At least 34 of the estimated 100 hostages remaining in Gaza have been confirmed dead, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The Foreign Ministry’s statement continued: “The death of any innocent person in a war is a tragedy. Israel makes extraordinary efforts to prevent harm to innocents, while Hamas makes extraordinary efforts to increase harm to Palestinian civilians.”
The ministry accused Hamas of using civilians as “human shields” to protect members of the group and of operating out of hospitals and schools. “The blame,” the ministry’s statement said, “should be directed solely at the terrorists, not at the democracy defending itself against them. Enough with the double standards and the singling out of the Jewish state and its people.”
And Rabbi Eliezer Simcha Weisz, a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council of Israel, the supreme religious authority for Jewish law and religious services in Israel, wrote in an open letter to Francis that the pope’s anti-Israel statements in the address “revived the darkest patterns of Catholic Church history — patterns that for centuries transformed false accusations into violence against the Jewish people.”
“You have repeatedly drawn a false moral equivalence between a democratic nation defending its citizens and terrorists who perpetrated the most barbaric massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” Weisz wrote.
Francis did not mention Hamas in his 5,217-word address.
In recent weeks, Israel, along with and Jewish leaders across the world, have denounced Francis over his calling the nation’s military offensive in Gaza “cruelty” for targeting civilians and suggesting the global community should investigate whether Israel has committed “genocide” in Gaza. (See related story.)
But the Council on American-Islamic Relations, America’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, commended Francis Thursday, saying in a statement: “We applaud Pope Francis for continuing to speak out against the Israeli government’s war crimes in Gaza.”
Meanwhile, 800 parents of Israeli soldiers who have fought or are still fighting in Gaza released a public letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday demanding that he reach a deal to end the war. The parents said they initially supported the Israeli military’s goals — most importantly, the return of hostages held by Hamas — but now say that will happen only as part of a deal with the militant group.
“We accuse you of abandoning the hostages and the soldiers” in a “war without a horizon, unlike anything in our history,” the parents wrote, threatening to launch an “all-out struggle.”
Hours after Francis delivered the address, a new study found that the Gaza death toll had been under-reported by more than 40%. The peer-reviewed study, conducted by researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and published in the medical journal The Lancet, estimated that 64,260 war-related “traumatic injury deaths” occurred in Gaza between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024.
Gaza’s health ministry had put the figure at 37,877 at the time and now says over 46,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed (but the ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally). At the same under-reporting rate, the Lancet study estimated, the death toll as of October would have exceeded 70,000.
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW), have accused Israel of carrying out a “genocide” in Gaza, and the United Nations reported Monday that the IDF had relentlessly attacked aid convoys amid rampant hunger, shortages of water and medication and inadequate healthcare. “The reality is that despite our determination to deliver food, water, and medicine to survivors, our efforts to save lives are at breaking point,” Tom Fletcher, the UN’s relief chief, said in a statement.
The UN International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported Wednesday that at least 74 children had been killed in Gaza in the first seven days of this year. Many died in nighttime attacks, including in Al Mawasi, a designated “safe zone” in southern Gaza, UNICEF said.
“For the children of Gaza, the new year has brought more death and suffering from attacks, deprivation and increasing exposure to the cold,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said. “The parties to the conflict and the international community must act urgently to end the violence, alleviate suffering and ensure that all hostages, especially the two remaining children, are released. Families need an end to this unimaginable suffering and heartbreak.”
In July, HRW also accused Hamas’ military wing and at least four other armed Palestinian groups of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during its October 2023 terrorist attack on Israel. In addition, the human rights group said Hamas’ practice of filming and releasing hostage videos is inhumane and amounts to a war crime.
Israel's Health Ministry said in a report submitted to the UN last week that Hamas subjected hostages in Gaza to torture, including brandings with hot irons and whippings; sexual and psychological abuse; solitary confinement in dark, filthy conditions with their hands and feet bound; and denial of food, water and essential medical care.
Pope Francis, who generally avoids taking sides in international conflicts, has repeatedly spoken out against Israel since September, when he called the IDF’s attacks on Gaza and Lebanon “disproportionate” and “immoral” and said they went beyond the “rules of war.”
At the same time, however, Francis has repeatedly condemned antisemitism, and in his address Thursday called the surge in global antisemitism a “source of deep concern.”
In his address, Francis also deplored persecution of Christians in Africa and Asia and restrictions on religious freedom in the West.
He repeated his plea for peace in Ukraine, where the war with Russia has claimed tens of thousands of lives. “My wish for the year 2025 is that the entire international community will work above all to end the conflict that, for almost three years now, has caused so much bloodshed,” he said.
The pope also lamented conflicts in Myanmar, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Haiti, Bolivia and Colombia, as well as the increasingly brutal crackdown on the Catholic Church in Nicaragua.
Last week, an Argentine judge ordered the arrest of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo. They stand accused of murders, torture, arbitrary imprisonments, forced disappearances and deportations, and persecution of dissidents for religious and political reasons. (See related story.)
“I think of Nicaragua, where the Holy See, which is always open to respectful and constructive dialogue, follows with concern the measures taken against individuals and institutions of the Church and asks that religious freedom and other fundamental rights be adequately guaranteed to all,” Francis said. “In the end, there can be no true peace without the guarantee of religious freedom, which entails respect for the conscience of individuals and the possibility of publicly manifesting one’s faith and membership in a community.”
The Holy Father also warned that the proliferation of ever more sophisticated and destructive weapons raises the specter of “the increasingly concrete threat of a world war.” He called for “a diplomacy of hope, of which all of us are called to be heralds, so that the dense clouds of war may be swept away by renewed winds of peace.”
Francis told the diplomats that money spent on weapons should instead go toward establishing a global fund to end hunger in the most impoverished countries “so that their citizens will not resort to violent or illusory solutions, or have to leave their countries in order to seek a more dignified life.”
He also pointed to “increasingly polarized societies marked by a general sense of fear and distrust of others and of the future, which is aggravated by the continuous creation and spread of fake news, which not only distorts facts but also perceptions.”
“This phenomenon,” Francis said, “generates false images of reality, a climate of suspicion that foments hate, undermines people’s sense of security and compromises civil coexistence and the stability of entire nations.”
In the 2025 Jubilee Year, a rich Catholic tradition that normally comes every quarter-century and celebrates repentance and forgiveness through God’s mercy, Francis urged a “diplomacy of forgiveness.” He expressed his “prayerful hope” that Christians and non-Christians alike would “overcome the logic of confrontation and embrace instead the logic of encounter so that the future does not find us hopelessly adrift, but pressing forward as pilgrims of hope, individuals and communities on the move, committed to building a future of peace.”
Francis called on wealthier nations to forgive the debts of poorer ones, including those suffering the heavy toll of the climate crisis or oppressive economic debt. “This is not simply an act of solidarity or generosity but above all, an act of justice,” he said.
Sounding another familiar theme, Francis said welcoming desperate migrants is a moral imperative, in stark contrast to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s stated plan to shut down the U.S. border and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants.
“I find it greatly disheartening to see that migration is still shrouded in a dark cloud of mistrust, rather than being seen as a source of empowerment,” Francis said.
“People on the move are seen simply as a problem to be managed. They cannot be treated like objects to be moved about; they have dignity and resources that they can offer to others; they have their own experiences, needs, fears, aspirations, dreams, skills and talents. It is only by viewing things in this perspective that progress can be made in confronting a phenomenon that requires the contribution of all countries, not least through the creation of safe regular pathways.”
The pope decried human trafficking, which exploits those fleeing war, famine, persecution or the effects of climate change, and said a “diplomacy of hope” demands that the international community “eliminate this horrid commerce.”
Francis also reiterated his call for worldwide abolition of the death penalty, saying, “There is no debt that allows anyone, including the State, to demand the life of another.”
He repeated the Catholic Church’s teachings that abortion and assisted suicide amount to grave sins. “All life must be protected, at every moment, from conception to natural death, because no child is a mistake or guilty of existing, just as no elderly or sick person may be deprived of hope and discarded,” Francis said.
Turning to advances in communications technology and artificial intelligence (AI), Francis said they have brought “undoubted benefits for mankind,” enabling us to stay in touch with loved ones from afar, keep up with current events and increase our knowledge.
At the same time, he said, the advances often contribute to “polarization, a narrowing of intellectual perspectives, a simplification of reality, misuse, anxiety and, ironically, isolation, particularly as a result of the use of social media and online games.” Over-reliance on social media also poses the risk of becoming a “culture rooted in consumerism” and “threatens to subvert the order of values inherent in the creation of relationships.”
Thus, he said, parents, close relatives and educators, not technology, “must remain the main channels for the transmission of culture” to youths.
“Here we see the importance of media literacy education, which aims to provide the essential tools needed to promote critical thinking skills, to equip young people with the necessary means for their personal growth and their active participation in the future of their societies,” Francis said.
AI, he added, raises broader concerns about intellectual property rights, the job security of millions of people, and the need to respect privacy and to protect the environment from “e-waste” from electrical and electronic devices, appliances and equipment containing dangerous toxins.
Looking ahead, Francis said: “How I would like this year, 2025, to be truly a year of grace, abounding in truth, forgiveness, freedom, justice and peace! In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, and each of us is called to make hope flourish all around us.
“This is my heartfelt wish for all of you, dear Ambassadors, for your families, and for the governments and peoples that you represent. May hope flourish in our hearts, and may our time find the peace for which it so greatly longs.”
Read the full text of Pope Francis’s “State of the World” address.
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