“Yesterday, children were bombed…This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart,” the leader of the world’s Catholics said on Saturday in his annual Christmas address.  

The Pope is usually careful about taking sides in conflicts. However, he has spoken out more openly in recent months against the Zionist regime’s crimes in Gaza.

In a book published last month, the excerpts of which have been released to the media, he said that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of genocide.”