Pope warns of 'mountain of dead' in Gaza conflict
Pope Francis on Wednesday met separately with Israeli relatives of Hamas hostages and Palestinians with family in Gaza, while warning the ongoing conflict could result in "a mountain of dead." At the end of his weekly audience at the Vatican, the 86-year-old pontiff called for prayers for peace, saying of both groups: "They suffer so much and I heard how they both suffer." "Wars do this, but here we have gone beyond wars. This is not war, this is terrorism," he added, without specifying whether he was referring to the October 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas or Israel's military operation in Gaza launched in response, or both. The Vatican said last week the pope hoped to show his "spiritual closeness" during the private meetings, which it said would be "exclusively humanitarian in nature." Each delegation told press conferences in Rome following the meetings that they believed Francis could use his moral influence to help them. Hamas gunmen carried out on October 7 a cross-border attack, the worst in Israel's history, that left around 1,200 people dead, most of them civilians, according to the Israeli government. Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups also took an estimated 240 Israelis and foreigners hostage, among them elderly people and young children. In retaliation, Israel launched a major bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza, which the Hamas government said has killed 14,100 people, mostly civilians and thousands of them children. (AFP)