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Pope Leo XIV attends general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on May 21, 2025. [isabella Bonotto – Anadolu Agency ]
Pope Leo XIV on Thursday renewed his call for “an immediate ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip and expressed his “profound hope” for “dialogue, reconciliation and lasting peace in the region,” following an Israeli attack on a Catholic church sheltering civilians, Anadolu reports.
The appeal came in a telegram signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin after the Church of the Holy Family in Gaza was hit during an Israeli military raid.
The pope said he was “deeply saddened” by the assault on the parish, which has provided refuge to more than 500 people since the beginning of the war.
Among those injured was the parish priest, Father Gabriel Romanelli, who sustained a light leg wound and was treated at Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City.
The pontiff addressed Father Romanelli directly in the telegram, assuring him of his “spiritual closeness” and offering prayers to the entire parish community.
“Entrusting the souls of the deceased to the loving mercy of Almighty God,” the pope said he is praying “for the consolation of those who mourn and for the healing of the wounded.”
In the course of its deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army has bombed several worship places, including the Gaza Baptist Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, the oldest in the Gaza Strip and the third oldest in the world.
The Holy Family Church is the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip, which has been sheltering many displaced Christian and Muslim Palestinians since October 2023.
The Israeli army, rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, has pursued a brutal offensive against Gaza since October 2023, killing nearly 58,600 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Injured Palestinians, including children are brought to al-Ahli Baptist Hospital for medical treatment aftermath of Israeli attack on Gaza City, Gaza on July 16, 2025. [Dawoud Abo Alkas – Anadolu Agency]
During a session at the UN Security Council on Wednesday, the Executive Director of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, revealed alarming figures about the impact of the ongoing Israeli offensive on Gaza.
She confirmed that more than 17,000 children have been killed since the beginning of the war, at an average rate of 28 children each day– the equivalent of an entire classroom.” It is as if we are losing an entire classroom of pupils every single day for two years.”
“Children are not political actors. They do not start conflicts, and they are powerless to stop them. But they suffer greatly, and they wonder why the world has failed them,” she added.
Meanwhile, the UN Under-Secretary-General Mr Tom Fletcher warned that the health situation in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels.
“Only 17 of 36 hospitals and 63 of 170 primary healthcare centres are functioning, all only partially, even as mass casualties arrive daily,” he highlighted.
Fletcher indicated that half of all medical equipment has been damaged, with the ongoing fuel crisis remaining critical, despite its vital role in powering ambulances and other essential services.
Expressing concern over the alarming rates of child starvation in June, he revealed that “more than 5,800 girls and boys have been diagnosed as acutely malnourished.”
“Last week, amid this hunger crisis, children and women were killed in a strike while waiting for the food supplements to keep them alive,” he warned.
Ghassan Abu-Sittah and other health workers hold press conference after Israeli attacks on Gaza’s hospitals, October 2023. Source: Ghassan Abu-Sittah/X
A judge in a German court ruled that the ban on activity imposed on renowned Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful.
The Palestine Congress in Berlin, which was organized in mid-April of last year, was violently shut down by the police on its first day, just minutes after it began. The pretext for this action, which was deemed unlawful by attorneys, was a live-stream of Palestinian historian Dr. Salman Abu Sitta.
His nephew, the doctor Ghassan Abu-Sittah, was banned from entering Germany on the morning of April 12, 2024. He had arrived on a flight from the UK, was detained and questioned for hours at Berlin airport, and then deported. He was also told that he was banned from practicing any political activities in Germany for the month of April, even from abroad. The organizers of the conference are taking legal action against the dissolution of the event, the trial of which is ongoing.
Witness to the genocide wins in Berlin
But Ghassan Abu-Sittah won a victory on Tuesday, July 15, at Berlin’s Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht). From the UK, the doctor had filed a lawsuit against the actions of the German authorities. The surgeon and rector of the University of Glasgow has worked as a doctor in a dozen war and crisis zones over the course of his life, including the Gaza Strip. Shortly after the genocide began in October 2023, he went there again as part of a “Doctors Without Borders” mission to provide aid at Al-Shifa Hospital. The hospital was repeatedly attacked and ultimately destroyed by the Israeli army in November 2023 and again in March/April 2024. Israeli forces massacred hundreds of doctors, patients, and refugees.
The court’s judge ruled that the ban on activity imposed on Abu-Sittah was unlawful. According to a spokeswoman for the court, there was no sufficient evidence that Abu-Sittah’s statements posed a threat to Germany’s constitutional order or public safety. In particular, the authorities were unable to produce any statements by the renowned doctor that referred positively to the Palestinian resistance’s “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation or even to possible war crimes committed by the Palestinian resistance. Even if such a danger had existed, a preventive ban on the doctor’s activities would have been disproportionate.
The spokesperson also pointed out that Abu-Sittah was heard as an eyewitness to the genocide in the International Criminal Court proceedings against Israeli government politicians, and was also announced as such at the Palestine Congress.
Racist repression
His lawyer, Alexander Gorki, explained on request: “The hearing showed that the ban on activities was unlawful from start to finish. What was to be sanctioned via the residency rights were opinions expressed by my client, who knew the situation on the ground in Gaza very well as a Palestinian and a doctor.” The court “put a stop to the abuse of immigration law”. However, the ruling will not prevent the immigration authorities from abusing their power in the future, warns the migration law expert. To counter this, “political pressure is needed”.
In fact, the repressive authorities in Germany have been using all kinds of tricks and legal means for years to bypass the courts and exert pressure on the Palestinian solidarity movement and Palestinians in Germany: from expulsions and deportations, to bans on organizing, employment bans and the cancellation of welfare benefits. Migrants and refugees with a precarious status are particularly affected. Just two weeks ago, on the orders of a court, Musaab Abu Atta, a Palestinian refugee and political activist, was released from four months of custody. The public prosecutor’s office is trying to lock him up again because of an alleged “flight risk”, even though he has a fiancée and a job in Berlin. At the same time, there are indications that they want to deport him to Syria.
Leon Wystrychowski is a former member of the Palästina Solidarität Duisburg (Palestine Solidarity Duisburg, PSDU).
Luigi Borrelli during an action against arms tranfers via civilian transport hubs. Source: USB
Workers and activists rally in Brescia against company retaliation targeting trade unionist who resisted arms transfers through civilian airport
Workers from the trade union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) and other anti-armament activists are protesting today in Brescia, Lombardy, against attempts to intimidate trade unionists who speak out and take action against the use of civilian transport hubs for arms deliveries. Ahead of the protest, USB’s Dario Filippini told Peoples Dispatch that the union expects a diverse range of groups to join the mobilization, building on a protest organized in June against an arms shipment via Montichiari Airport in Brescia.
At that time, long-time airport employee and trade unionist Luigi Borrelli raised concerns about the possible transfer of military goods through the airport, which, as Filippini points out, is intended for the transport of cargo such as mail, medicine, and food. Borrelli’s warning triggered an organized response and ultimately led to the cancellation of the flight. However, the airport operator, GDA Handling, retaliated by threatening Borrelli with dismissal for allegedly breaching confidentiality and “loyalty to the company.”
Filippini notes that this is not the first time GDA Handling has targeted Borrelli over his opposition to the airport’s apparent covert role in transporting military cargo. Since at least mid-2024, when he began raising concerns about suspicious packages moving through Montichiari, Borrelli has faced suspensions and fines – measures seemingly aimed at silencing him and deterring others.
“The obvious goal is to prevent any scrutiny of the repeated use of the airport for operations related to weapons deliveries to active war zones,” USB stated.
Nevertheless, trade unions and other organizations argue that Borrelli’s actions are legally sound and morally justified. The Italian Constitution clearly states that the Republic “repudiates war,” which raises questions about the legitimacy of transporting arms to countries engaged in conflict. There are also practical implications for workers, Filippini points out: “If you’ve been hired to handle mail or food, why should you suddenly be expected to handle weapons?” he asks. “If arms have to be handled in the first place, wouldn’t soldiers be better placed to do that?” he adds, noting the proximity of Ghedi Air Base.
In several cases across Europe, workers have refused to handle military shipments destined for Israel during its ongoing genocide in Gaza, including over health and safety concerns. As an elected workers’ representative, Borrelli echoed similar concerns when he publicly denounced military transports through Montichiari. But this appears to matter little to Italian authorities or airport management.
Instead, broader efforts to discredit and constrain workers taking industrial action against the arms trade have emerged. Some official interpretations have even said arms were “essential goods,” thereby potentially limiting workers’ ability to legally strike over such shipments. Giorgio Cremaschi of the left political party Potere al Popolo described this as a form of militarization of labor, where “workers at ports, railways, airports, and throughout logistics become de facto soldiers, carriers of arms.”
USB and Potere al Popolo have called for resistance to these efforts and for the protection of workers’ rights – both to strike and to speak out against war. “We are convinced that strike, disobedience, collective action, and individual refusal by working men and women can be the most effective forms of nonviolent resistance,” reads a statement issued by dozens of trade unionists, legal scholars, and academics ahead of the protest in Brescia. “Such actions can stop the warmongers and the madness of rearmament, allowing the Republic, founded on labor, to repudiate war and consign it to history.”
“This is about going beyond the slogan ‘not in my name’ and declaring through concrete acts: ‘not with my hands, not with my knowledge, not with my labor,’” the statement adds.
Reflecting this approach, the mobilizations in Brescia are contributing to a growing movement among transport and logistics workers in the region who are standing up against Europe’s armament agenda, Filippini says. These efforts have earned solidarity from workers’ organizations abroad. Among them is Greece’s All-Workers Militant Front (PAME), which stated: “The persecution and the threat of dismissal against trade unionist Luigi Borrelli is an attack on the unions that resist the plans and the wars of the imperialist, that fight for peace between peoples.”
As solidarity with Borrelli continues, USB and its allies remain committed to expanding the campaign against the arms trade and defending workers’ right to conscientiously object to participating in weapons transfers. “Wars should be boycotted,” Potere al Popolo wrote in a statement of support. “Blocking arms shipments is not only legitimate: it is an act of justice and democracy.”
![Pope Leo XIV attends general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, on May 21, 2025. [isabella Bonotto - Anadolu Agency ]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/AA-20250521-38028952-38028944-POPE_LEO_XIV_ATTENDS_HIS_FIRST_GENERAL_AUDIENCE.jpg?fit=920%2C613&ssl=1)
![Injured Palestinians, including children are brought to al-Ahli Baptist Hospital for medical treatment aftermath of Israeli attack on Gaza City, Gaza on July 16, 2025. [Dawoud Abo Alkas - Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/AA-20250716-38579326-38579324-ISRAELI_ATTACK_ON_GAZA_LEAVES_MULTIPLE_CASUALTIES-1-1.jpg?fit=920%2C613&ssl=1)
