Pope Leo XIV. and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas discussed the “urgent need” to provide aid to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip in their first face-to-face meeting on Thursday. informs TASR according to an AFP report.
- Pope Leo XIV. and Mahmoud Abbas discussed aid to the Gaza Strip.
- The meeting took place after ten years of recognition of Palestine by the Holy See.
- Abbas paid his respects to the late Pope Francis during the visit.
- The Palestinian president will also visit Italian Prime Minister Meloni.
- Leo XIV. condemned the displacement of Palestinians, he avoided a strong condemnation of the situation.
Abbas and Leo XIV. they spoke on the phone already in July, well Thursday’s face-to-face meeting was their first since May, when Leo XIV. took over the leadership of the Catholic Church, AFP reports.
“During this cordial conversation, both sides recognized the urgent need to provide aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip and to end the conflict through a two-state solution,” the Vatican said in a statement. He recalled that the meeting took place ten years after how The Holy See recognized the statehood of Palestine through an agreement signed in 2015.
The Palestinian president visited the Vatican almost a month after the start of a fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas movement, which attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. For many years, Abbas has headed the Palestinian Authority, which has limited control over parts of the West Bank. His Fatah movement rivals Hamas, which seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.
Abbas met Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, who died in April of this year, several times. Towards the end of his pontificate, Pope Francis hardened his rhetoric against the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, his successor Leo XIV. however, he chose a more restrained tone.
Leo XIV. expressed solidarity with the Gaza Strip and condemned the forced displacement of Palestinians, but said the Holy See could not call the current situation “genocide”. On Wednesday afternoon, Abbas laid flowers at Francis’ tomb in Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica. “What he did for Palestine and the Palestinian people cannot be forgotten,” Abbas told reporters.
In the Vatican in 2014, Abbas and then Israeli President Shimon Peres together with Pope Francis, they participated in a prayer for peace and planted an olive tree there together. On Friday, Abbas will meet Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni.
