Shafaqna English- Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Gaza’s Christians urge the new Pope Leo XIV to pursue the late Pope’s ‘peace efforts’.
Abbas sent “best wishes for the success of Pope Leo XIV in the pursuit of his noble task and maintaining the legacy of the late Pope Francis,” said in a statement released by his office late Thursday (08 May 2025) after the Vatican announced the election of a new pope.
Abbas highlighted the “importance of the moral, religious and political role of the Vatican in the defense of just causes,” adding that “the Palestinian people and their right to liberty and independence” should be at the top.
In Gaza, the enclave’s tiny Christian community said that they were happy about the election of a new leader of the Catholic Church. They also expressed confidence he would give importance to the war-torn enclave like his predecessor Pope Francis did.
“We are happy about the election of the Pope … We hope that his heart will remain with Gaza like Pope Francis,” George Antone, 44, head of the emergency committee at the Holy Family Church in Gaza, told Reuters.
“We appeal to the new pope to look at Gaza through the eyes of Pope Francis and to feel it with the heart of Pope Francis. At the same time, we are confident that the new pope will give importance to Gaza and its peace,” Antone added.
Hamas, in a statement, congratulated Pope Leo saying that it looked forward to “his continuation of the late Pope’s path in supporting the oppressed and rejecting the genocide in Gaza.”
Source: Arab News