Pope Francis, tackling conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine in his yearly address to diplomats, said on Monday that “indiscriminately striking” civilians is a war crime because it violates international humanitarian law.
Francis, 87, made his comments in a 45-minute address to Vatican-accredited envoys that is sometimes called his “state of the world” speech.
Expressing concern that the war between Israel and the Palestinian terror group Hamas in the Gaza Strip could spread in the wider Middle East, he called for a “ceasefire on every front, including Lebanon,” from where the Hezbollah terror group has attacked Israel, bringing those two countries to the brink of war as well.
He condemned Hamas’s October 7 cross-border attack from Gaza into southern Israel as an “atrocious” act of “terrorism and extremism,” and renewed a call for the immediate liberation of the hostages being held by terrorists in Gaza.
“All of us remain shocked by the October 7 attack on the Israeli people in which great numbers of innocent persons were horribly wounded, tortured and murdered and many taken hostage,” Francis said, without naming Hamas. He also emphasized his “renewed condemnation of this act.”
He also appeared to blame the terror group at least partially for the fate of Gazans, saying that the “attack provoked a strong Israeli military response in Gaza that has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Gazans, mostly civilians.”
Francis also said the recent resurgence of antisemitism since the start of the Gaza war was a “scourge” that must be eliminated from society.
In remarks linking the two main conflicts in the world today, Francis said modern warfare often does not distinguish between military and civilian objectives.
No conflict does not end up in some way “indiscriminately striking” the civilian population, he said.
“The events in Ukraine and Gaza are clear proof of this,” he said. “We must not forget that grave violations of international humanitarian law are war crimes and that it is not sufficient to point them out, but also necessary to prevent them.”
“There is a need for greater effort on the part of the international community to defend and implement humanitarian law, which seems to be the only way to ensure the defense of human dignity in situations of warfare,” he said.
Francis argued that the world is experiencing a growing number of conflicts that are slowly turning from “a third world war fought piecemeal into a genuine global conflict.”
The Israel-Hamas war began when 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists burst through the Gaza border into southern Israel on October 7 and killed 1,200 people — most of them civilians slaughtered amid brutal atrocities — and abducted some 240 people to Gaza, where 132 are still being held hostage. Israel, in response, vowed to dismantle the military and governance capacities of the Gaza-ruling terror group and to secure the return of the hostages.
Over 22,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. Israel estimates that about 8,500 terrorists have been killed since it launched its ground offensive into Gaza in late October.
Israel says it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians, blaming the high death toll on the fact that Hamas fights in densely populated urban areas and embeds itself deliberately among civilians. The US and European Union have both condemned Hamas for using civilians as human shields.
The Hamas assault came under cover of a barrage of thousands of rockets fired indiscriminately at Israeli towns and cities. As the war has continued, Palestinian terror groups have continued sporadic fire at southern and central Israel, displacing tens of thousands of people.
At the same time as Israel fights Hamas on its southern border, it has been battling Hezbollah on the northern border, albeit in a much more limited way.
Since October 8, Hezbollah and allied Palestinian terror factions in Lebanon have engaged in daily border clashes with Israeli troops, targeting civilian communities with drone, rocket, and missile attacks, and forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate from the area.
The fighting along the border has resulted in four civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of nine IDF soldiers.
Hezbollah has named 153 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 19 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and at least 19 civilians, three of whom were journalists, have been killed.
Over 200,000 Israelis have been displaced by the rocket fire at southern and northern border communities.
Lazar Berman contributed to this report.