Holy Land's top Catholic leader calls on Christians to help build bridges in the Gaza conflict

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JERUSALEM (AP) — As talks got underway Monday to end the war in Gaza, the top Catholic leader in the Holy Land called on Christians in the region to be a bridge and help restore trust between Israelis and Palestinians.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa said Christians — who make up just 1% of the population in the birthplace of Christianity — are of “no threat” to any side of the conflict and therefore are uniquely positioned to help everyone work toward a shared and peaceful postwar future. Though he has no illusions that it will be easy.

“In this moment, you have to be very honest, very candid — the respective communities are not ready for this,” he told The Associated Press in his reception hall in Jerusalem’s Old City — a shared and hotly contested holy site for Christianity, Islam and Judaism. “The wounds are there, very painful. The suffering, the misunderstandings. So, what we have to do is to start from this very sad reality and rebuild.”

On the eve of the second anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israel that triggered the devastating war in Gaza and violence across the region, Israeli and Hamas officials launched indirect talks Monday in Egypt on a U.S.-drafted peace plan.

Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, said that cautious hope was spreading among the faithful at the one Catholic church in Gaza. It was struck by an Israeli shell in July but has continued ministering to its community and those seeking shelter in it.

“People keep dying every day out there. But at least in the air you feel something different, you hope that maybe this is going to finish,” he said.

As for Jewish and Muslim communities, the war’s devastating toll has fractured society at all levels, Pizzaballa said.

“This war made all the different issues — political, religious, economic, cultural — explode,” he said. “Now we have to rethink everything anew.”

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251, of whom 48 remain hostage in Gaza — 20 believed by Israel to be alive and whose release is considered a crucial first step in the peace process.

In the war triggered by the attack, more than 67,100 Palestinians were killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, but says more than half of the deaths were women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and the U.N. and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.

The Vatican has consistently called for a ceasefire and expressed dismay at the death toll in Gaza. But it has struck a different tone this year under Pope Leo XIV compared to his predecessor, Pope Francis, who in a public letter on the one-year anniversary expressed empathy with the people of Gaza, but never mentioned Israel or the Jewish people.

On Monday, the Vatican condemned the “inhuman massacre” of innocent people in Israel and called for the return of hostages, while also pleading for a stop to the “perverse chain of hatred.”

Pizzaballa said that the Catholic Church wants to find “a new direction” in relations with the Jewish people and the state of Israel, with which the Holy See established diplomatic relations just over three decades ago.

“As Catholics, we need also to understand that for the Jewish people, the state of Israel is not just one state among the others. It’s an important reference point,” he said.

Pizzaballa said he finds the biggest reasons for hope in how some ordinary people — Christians, Jews, and Muslims, even in Gaza — haven’t given up, even as many of their fellow believers are “full of contempt” for each other.

“It tells me that the life, the humanity is still alive,” he said.

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