As the Gaza war bleeds into Lebanon, the Church labors to stop further escalation
The trust between Pope Francis and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa dates back to the beginning of the pontificate. Here, Pizzaballa whispers into the Pope’s ear on May 26, 2014, more than 10 years ago, when Pope Francis visited Israel to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic 1964 encounter in Jerusalem between Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Greek Orthodox Patriarch, Athenagoras (Photo Grzegorz Galazka)
By Christopher Hart-Moynihan
“No one wants war but no one can stop it.”
That was how the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, characterized the situation in the Holy Land recently, after nearly a year of war, in an interview with Vatican News, the official Vatican news agency. What started with a series of terrorist attacks carried out against Israel on October 7, 2023, has after 10 months spiraled into a conflict that is on the brink of expanding — some would say, has expanded — to the entire Middle East.
The international community has largely stood by while the terrible bloodshed that broke out on October 7 has continued and grown worse. Many observers have warned that the conditions are now in place for several possible “worst-case scenarios” to play out, which would embroil the world’s major powers in a new “World War” for the 21st century. These concerns were accentuated by several recent targeted bombing attacks outside of Israel, in Lebanon and in Iran, for which Iran and Hezbollah have vowed to retaliate. As of this writing, a definitive retaliation has not yet occurred.
Of course, as many analysts have observed, the roots of Israel’s current war with Hamas and the increasingly intensifying dispute with Hezbollah and Iran date back decades, making the current iteration of the conflict exponentially more difficult to resolve. Nonetheless, in recent weeks, various voices in the Vatican have continued to work through diplomatic channels in attempts to prevent the conflict from escalating further.
The task of Cardinal Pizzaballa is made even more difficult by the fact that Christians on all sides of the conflict have experienced, and continue to experience, suffering and loss. In the first week of August, Israel’s northern neighbor Lebanon, which is both the seat of Hezbollah’s operations as well as the home of several sizable Christian communities — including Orthodox, and Maronite, Syriac and Melkite Catholics — saw panicked crowds pack into Beirut’s Rafic Hariri international airport as people desperately tried to leave the country before the outbreak of further hostilities.
The panic in Lebanon was brought on by the targeted killings of a Hezbollah leader in Beirut and a Hamas leader in Tehran. Airstrikes by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) killed Fuad Shukr (left), the Hezbollah commander, on July 30 in Beirut, and Ismail Haniyeh (right), the leader of Hamas’ political arm (here), in Tehran on July 31. 
In response, Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of Hezbollah, stated, “After the assassination of Haniyeh, Iran finds itself obliged to respond. After the assassination of Fuad [Shukr], Hezbollah finds itself obliged to respond.”
As of this writing, nearing the middle of August, a military response by Iran and/or Hezbollah, of the type that would definitively usher in a wider war, has not yet occurred. However, multiple signs seem to indicate that such a response is imminent. In recent days, Russian military officials have visited Iran and the United States navy has begun to position warships off the coast of Israel and in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, to the south of Iran. An escalated conflict could quickly entangle the two superpowers, who are already fighting a shadow war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department issued an updated travel advisory for Lebanon on July 31, advising all Americans, “Do Not Travel to Lebanon due to rising tensions between Hizballah [Hezbollah] and Israel. If you are in Lebanon, be prepared to shelter in place should the situation deteriorate.”
At his August 7 General Audience, Pope Francis once again called for de-escalation. “I pray that the sincere search for peace will extinguish strife, love will overcome hatred, and revenge will be disarmed by forgiveness,” Francis said, reiterating his long-standing appeal for an end to the violence. He added, “I reiterate my appeal to all parties involved to ensure that the conflict does not spread and to immediately cease fire on all fronts, starting from Gaza where the humanitarian situation is extremely serious and unsustainable.”
In his interview with Vatican News at the end of June, Pizzaballa alluded to the increasing risk of a wider war, stating, “The internal debate exists in Israel and also in Lebanon: no one wants war but it seems that no one can stop it, and this is the problem. Of course, if the northern front were to open, it would certainly be a tragedy, especially for Lebanon, which risks becoming another Gaza, at least in the southern part. I am not an expert in military matters, but the landscape remains very tense, always on the verge of further escalation.” Discussing the impact of the war specifically on the Christian community, he added, “Christians are not a separate people, they live what everyone else lives. We know the situation in Gaza, unfortunately, but it is also very problematic in the West Bank, especially from an economic point of view. There is a situation of paralysis, work is scarce or non-existent, and this makes the prospects of emigration increasingly attractive, unfortunately especially for Christians.”
Amidst the chaos and uncertainty, one thing is abundantly clear: this war, thus far, is a human tragedy on a massive scale. While the eyes of the world shift towards Iran and Lebanon, ten months of Israeli efforts to eliminate Hamas have led to at least 39,965 dead and 92,294 wounded, according to U.N. estimates as of August 13. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, and more than 200 were taken captive. In addition, there now exists “a full-blown famine” in the north of Gaza (according to Cindy McCain, director of the World Food Programme), while Hamas continues to be operational. In the months since the October 7 attacks, millions more have been left without water, electricity, and food.
During a lecture he gave to the College of Europe in Natolin (located near Warsaw, Poland) in mid-May, Pizzaballa made several interesting observations about the nature of the conflict, and how it affects his leadership and actions as Patriarch. “The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem… has jurisdiction over Israel and Palestine, the two conflicting parties. I have Catholics who are Israelis, Catholics who are Palestinians. Some Palestinian Catholics are under the bombs and others are serving in the Army, bombing. And this brings tensions also within our church community.”
The cover of Dr. Robert Moynihan’s interview with Habib Malik, Professor of History at the Lebanese American University, on the Urbi et Orbi Communications podcast in late June
While the war in Gaza seems to have no end in sight, the probability of war in southern Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah seems to be growing daily. In an interview with Urbi et Orbi Communications podcast in late June with Dr. Robert Moynihan, editor of Inside the Vatican, and myself — before the twin assassinations had further ratcheted up tensions between Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran — Habib Malik, a Professor of History at the Lebanese American University and the son of former U.N. General Assembly President Charles Malik, summarized the situation on the ground in Lebanon and the wider Middle East as follows:
“It’s peaceful on the surface in Beirut, but there’s a lot of rising anxiety about this war in the South — which has been imposed on Lebanon by Hezbollah — spreading northwards and igniting a far larger conflagration both in Lebanon and the region. I can tell you that the majority of Lebanese are against this war, and Hezbollah took the decision to go to war unilaterally, in the service of Iranian policy. The majority of Christians, the majority of Sunni Muslims, the majority of Druze — these are the main communities in the country — and a good portion of Shiites, who cannot easily speak their mind — many of whom have had their homes destroyed in the villages on the border [with Israel] — are against this war. And no one consulted the Lebanese people. No one went to Parliament. Hezbollah just basically took the decision, under orders from Tehran, to plunge Lebanon into war. Malik continued, “The entire region is totally shaken up and imperiled by brazen Iranian imperial expansionism. Iran, in one form or another, controls four Arab capitals in the region: Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. All of the armed groups there are beholden to Iran and ideologically in the same camp as the the leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, who has [an] apocalyptic view that the entire region needs to be changed, moderate Sunni countries that are friendly to the West need to be weakened, and Israel needs to be eliminated out of existence. And the most hypocritical part of all of this is that the Palestinian issue is being used as a convenient tool by the Iranian regime to spread terror and imperial domination by Iran, and to practice piracy on the high seas, as we’ve been seeing over the last several months in the Red Sea.”
Prof. Malik’s comments highlight the strange nature of the conflict as it is being experienced by the Lebanese people: Hezbollah, which is essentially a “state-within-a state,” controls most of the southern half of Lebanon and exchanges rocket fire with the IDF on a regular basis. Meanwhile, Hezbollah also wields a great deal of political power in the Lebanese Parliament, which allows it to continue its military operations against Israel, with the tacit support — or, at least, lack of opposition — of Lebanon’s ruling coalition government. Nevertheless, the majority of Lebanese living in the capital, Beirut, as well as in the central and northern parts of the country — which are not under Hezbollah control — do not, as Malik says, identify strongly or at all with the paramilitary group’s guiding philosophy of permanent “resistance” to Israel, and many oppose it. In other words, the mostly Shiite Muslim population of the Hezbollah-controlled southern part of Lebanon is largely (though with some exceptions) both strongly supportive of, and already deeply involved in, a cross-border conflict with the IDF, while the Maronite Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Syriac Catholic, and Sunni Muslim population living in the rest of the country is largely anti-war and is not yet experiencing a direct effect of the conflict in their daily lives — though this could change at any moment.
While voices such as Malik have continued to emphasize the role and responsibility of Hezbollah and Iran in ratcheting up tensions to the current fever pitch, the Vatican’s most senior representatives have kept trying to find a middle ground and space for peace talks. The Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, visited Lebanon June 23-27 and strongly urged all parties involved to seek peaceful solutions for the end of the conflict.
Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin during a June visit to Beirut, Lebanon, two months ago (June 26, 2024).
The Holy See “asks for peace proposals to be welcomed, so that fighting stops on each side, so hostages in Gaza are released, so that the necessary aid arrives unhindered to the Palestinian population,” Parolin said.
He added, “Lebanon, the Middle East, the whole world certainly doesn’t need war.”
The Vatican has supported a two-state solution for the Holy Land since the establishment of Israel and the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948. In 2015, the Vatican signed the Comprehensive Agreement with the State of Palestine, which officially recognized Palestine as an independent state, within the pre-1967 borders, and resulted in the opening of a Palestinian Embassy to the Holy See. Pope Francis has explicitly renewed the appeal for a two-state solution in several public statements since the outbreak of hostilities last year. On June 7, Francis gathered Israeli Ambassador to the Holy See Raphael Schutz and Palestinian Ambassador Issa Kassissieh, as well as representatives of Italy’s Jewish and Muslim communities, at an intimate prayer meeting in the Vatican Gardens. The Pope stated that he hoped the meeting would mark the beginning of a “new journey” towards peace, and he highlighted the growing number of children who had lost their lives in the conflict.
Despite these concerted efforts, Pizzaballa and the Vatican found themselves in the midst of diplomatic controversy once again after the Justice and Peace Commission of the Holy Land, which is headed by Pizzaballa, criticized the widespread characterization of the IDF’s operations in Gaza as a “just war.” The Commission, sponsored by the Assembly of the Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land, consists of representatives from the Latin, Greek Melkite, Maronite, Armenian, Syriac and Chaldean Catholic leadership of Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Cyprus. According to a report released by the Commission on June 30, “neither the attacks by Hamas on October 7 nor Israel’s devastating war in response satisfy the criteria for ‘just war’ according to Catholic doctrine…
“Most importantly, just wars must clearly differentiate between civilians and combatants, a principle that has been ignored in this war by both sides with tragic results.
“Just wars must also employ a proportionate use of force, which cannot easily be said of a war in which the Palestinian death toll is tens of thousands of people higher than that of Israel, and one in which a clear majority of the Palestinian casualties have been women and children.”
The Commission continued: “This theory is being used in a way in which it was never intended: to justify the death of tens of thousands, our friends and our neighbors… We cannot allow words like ‘just’ to be mobilized to justify what is unjust, cruel and devastating. We must argue for the integrity of language, because we remain convinced that true justice is still possible if we can hold fast to its promise. When words are perverted, language itself becomes incapable of plotting out a future that is free from the scourges of the present.”
Meanwhile, efforts to start talks in Cairo or Qatar in mid-August were derailed by the August 10 bombing of the al-Tabin school in Gaza by the IDF (Israel Defense Force), which killed 100 people and was condemned by Qatar and Egypt — countries which, alongside the U.S., have been seeking to organize the talks for months. The IDF claimed the school was a “command and control centre” that “served as a hideout for Hamas terrorists and commanders.”
In a statement released on the same day, Pizzaballa stated, “It is becoming increasingly difficult to envision a conclusion to this conflict.”
One final observation: development of the Karish North (natural gas) field, about sixty miles off the coast of northern Israel, has been completed and oil and gas production has been in operation since February 22.
The Levant Basin, located in the eastern Mediterranean, is estimated to contain roughly 1.7 billion barrels of oil — and the question of who owns the rights to the reserves, which have been contested by Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine over the past several decades, adds yet another layer of complexity to the ongoing conflict.
A map of the Gaza Natural Gas field adjacent to the Gaza Strip Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), as allocated by Israeli authorities (Source: Christian Fleury, 2021)
On July 30, the day of the killing of Fuad Shukr in Beirut, I exchanged text messages with a friend, a young Maronite Christian, living in the western (majority-Shiite Muslim) part of the city, who until recently had been working as a tour guide.
“It’s becoming worse,” he told me. “I hope I can leave Lebanon soon.”
The bombing had occurred in Dahieh, near his family’s home.
“We wish it would stop,” he told me. “But now it gets worse and affects our work and everything,” he continued.
“Every time we start to recover and build, something bad happens.”
Card. Pizzaballa: “All that remains is to pray”
Dear brothers and sisters,
May the Lord grant you peace!
Many months have now passed since the beginning of this terrible war. The suffering caused by this conflict and the dismay at what is happening are not only unabated, but seem to be fueled again and again by hatred, resentment and contempt, which only intensify the violence and push away the possibility of finding solutions.
Indeed, it is becoming increasingly difficult to envision a conclusion to this conflict, whose impact on the lives of our people is greater and more painful than ever before. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find people and institutions with whom a dialog about the future and peaceful relations is possible. We all seem to be crushed by this present, which is characterized by so much violence and, admittedly, anger.
However, these days seem to be important to be able to turn the tide of the conflict, and among them especially August 15, which for us is the day of the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven.
On this day, before or after the celebration of the Eucharist or at another suitable time, I invite everyone to a moment of intercession for peace to the Blessed Virgin Mary. I hope that the parishes, the contemplative and apostolic religious communities and even the few pilgrims who are among us will unite in the common desire for peace that we entrust to the Blessed Virgin.
After having spent so many words and after having done what we can to help and be close to everyone, especially those who are most affected, all that remains is for us to pray. In view of the many words of hatred that are all too often spoken, we would like to offer our prayer, which consists of words of reconciliation and peace.
Enclosed you will find a prayer to Our Lady of the Assumption that you can say on the day of this Solemnity.
Let us pray that in this long night that we are living through, the intercession of the most holy Mary will open a glimpse of light for all of us and for the whole world.
Wishing you all the best in Christ,
+Pierbattista Card. Pizzaballa Patriarch of Jerusalem of the Latins
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