At the conclusion of his weekly General Audience, Pope Leo XIV expresses his \u201cdeepest\u201d sympathy for the people of Gaza. He renews his appeal for a ceasefire, the release of hostages, a diplomatic solution to the crisis, and full respect for international humanitarian law. <\/p>\n
By Christopher Wells<\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cI express my deepest sympathy to the Palestinian people in Gaza, who continue to live in fear and survive in unacceptable conditions, forced\u2014once again\u2014from their lands,\u201d Pope Leo XIV said at his General Audience on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
Israeli forces launched a massive new military offensive against Gaza\u2019s largest population centre, Gaza City, on Tuesday, ordering civilians to flee the city amid the most intense bombardment they have faced in almost two years of war. Hamas has said 350,000 people have fled the eastern part of the city for displacement centres in other parts of Gaza City, while another 175,000 have fled the city altogether.<\/p>\n
Inviolable human dignity of every person must be respected <\/p>\n
Invoking \u201cthe Almighty Lord, who commanded \u2018Thou shalt not kill,\u2019\u201d and \u201cin the presence of all humanity,\u201d Pope Leo on Wednesday declared, \u201cEvery person always has an inviolable dignity, to be respected and protected.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Holy Father went on to renew his appeal for \u201ca ceasefire, for the release of the hostages, for a negotiated diplomatic solution, and for full respect for international humanitarian law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, Pope Leo invited \u201ceveryone\u201d to join in his \u201cheartfelt prayer that a dawn of peace and justice may soon rise.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the conclusion of his weekly General Audience, Pope Leo XIV expresses his \u201cdeepest\u201d sympathy for the people…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":236803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7080,127095,118,56405,99,50,4851,3417,131,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-236802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-appeal","9":"tag-general-audience","10":"tag-human-rights","11":"tag-humanitarian-emergency","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-palestine","15":"tag-pope-leo-xiv","16":"tag-war","17":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}