In Christmas message, Pope Francis begs for end to Israel’s Gaza campaign, decries ‘appalling harvest’ of civilian deaths

Pope Francis said in his Christmas message on Monday that children dying in wars, including in Gaza, are the “little Jesuses of today” and that Israeli strikes there were reaping an “appalling harvest” of innocent civilians.

In his Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and world) address, Francis also called the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants “abominable” and again appealed for the release of around 100 hostages still being held in Gaza.

Speaking from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to thousands of people in the square below, he took another swipe at the armaments industry, saying it ultimately controlled the “puppet-strings of war”.

The 87-year-old Francis, celebrating the 11th Christmas of his pontificate, called for an end to conflicts, political, social or military, in places including Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and he defended the rights of migrants around the world.

“How many innocents are being slaughtered in our world! In their mothers’ wombs, in odysseys undertaken in desperation and in search of hope, in the lives of all those little ones whose childhood has been devastated by war. They are the little Jesuses of today,” he said.

He gave particular attention to the Holy Land, including Gaza, where, according to Palestinian health officials, Israeli air strikes killed at least 78 people in one of the besieged enclave’s deadliest nights of Israel’s 11-week-old battle with Hamas.

“May it [peace] come in Israel and Palestine, where war is devastating the lives of those peoples. I embrace them all, particularly the Christian communities of Gaza and the entire Holy Land,” Francis said.