Francis also said on Saturday that the Catholic bishop of Jerusalem, known as a patriarch, had tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Friday to visit Catholics there but was denied entry.

The patriarch’s office told Reuters it was unable to comment on the Pope’s remarks about the patriarch being denied entry.

The Israeli military said on Saturday the patriarch’s entry had been approved and he would enter Gaza on Sunday, barring major security issues. Aid from the patriarch’s office entered last week, the military said.

Israel allows clerics to enter Gaza and “works in co-operation with the Christian community to make it easier for the Christian population that remains in the Gaza Strip – including co-ordinating its removal from the Gaza Strip to a third country”, a statement from the military said.

The war began when Hamas-led Palestinian militants attacked southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing 1200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign, which it says is aimed at eliminating Hamas, has killed more than 45,000 people, mostly civilians, say authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. The campaign has displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins.

Israel says at least a third of the dead have been militants and it tries to avoid harm to civilians but is battling militants who it accuses of embedding among the population in dense urban areas. Hamas rejects this.

Reuters