Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Pope Leo Mentions Suffering in Gaza, Silent on Hostages

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In an address to one million young Catholics, gathered in Rome for the Mass of Young People for the Jubilee Year, Pope Leo spoke of the need to end the suffering of the “young people of Gaza,” but said nothing about the Israeli hostages being tortured and starved to death in tunnels under the Strip. More on what he said, and what he failed to say, can be found here: “Pope criticised for failure to mention hostages in statement on Gaza,” Jewish News, August 3, 2025:

The Pope has been criticised for statements in which he described being “with the young people of Gaza” without any mention of the Israeli hostages who are still in the clutches of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Leo XIV, who took office in May, was presiding over a Mass for the Jubilee of Young People at Rome’s Tor Vergata, with a million people said to be in attendance. In his closing remarks, he talked about how “we are closer than ever to young people who suffer the most serious evils which are caused by other human beings. We are with the young people of Gaza. We are with the young people of Ukraine, with those of every land bloodied by war.

“My young brothers and sisters, you are the sign that a different world is possible, a world of fraternity and friendship, where conflicts are not resolved with weapons but with dialogue.”

Does Pope Leo know anything about the texts and teachings of Islam? He speaks about a “world of fraternity and friendship,” apparently unaware that in the Qur’an, Muslims are instructed “not to take Jews and Christians as friends, for they are friends only with each other.” He does not appear to know that for believing and knowledgable Muslims, the “fraternity” he calls for is impossible, for Muslims know from the Qur’an that they are the “best of peoples,” while non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings.” They know further, from the very words of Muhammad, that “Islam must dominate and is not to be dominated.” But Pope Leo does not know any of this. He believes that whatever strife there is in the world is the product of misunderstanding, and that greater comprehension between people will inexorably lead to peace. He wants us to ignore 1,400 years of Muslim aggression against many non-Muslim peoples and their lands, fueled by the the contents of the Qur’an and hadith.

The Pope’s words were subsequently also posted on social media, where they were met with disappointment and condemnation for the lack of any mention of the hostages taken on 7 October, which began the current war in Gaza.

Why did the Pope pass over in silence the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza?

In the last few days, both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) have released videos of emaciated hostages – Evyatar David and Rom Braslavsky. In the section of the PIJ video released to the public, Braslavsky speaks about how he is without food or water, and says: “I am on the verge of death”. In the Hamas video of David, he is forced to dig what he says is his own grave.

Given those latest horrifying images of what the hostages endure, one might have thought there would have been a sympathetic mention of their plight by Pope Leo, but he said nothing about them. This failure has caused consternation and alarm among Jewish groups. In the first month of his papacy, on May 28, he did call for peace in Gaza and for the release of the hostages. But since then, he has stopped mentioning the need for the Israeli hostages to be released. Has he been seeing the same images we are all shown on television, of gaunt and dead children in Gaza, photographs which include children emaciated not as the result of hunger, but from the effects of congenital illnesses? He has yet to denounce Hamas, or even to mention the terror group by name, much less to note that Hamas tries always to maximize civilian casualties in Gaza, while the IDF strives instead to minimize civilian casualties, by conducting a tremendous campaign to warn civilians away from places about to be targeted, by dropping millions of leaflets, sending millions of text messages, and making millions of robocalls. As West Point Professor John Spencer, an expert in urban warfare who has been exhaustively studying the war in Gaza, concludes, “Israel has done more and implemented more measures to prevent civilian harm than any military in the history of urban warfare.”

The Pope could repair his relations with world Jewry by calling forcefully for the release of Israeli hostages, stressing the torments they have undergone in captivity, and the ever-increasing length of time they have been held, now surpassing 670 days. He ought to take note, as he has not yet, of Hamas’ charter, that calls for the total destruction of the Jewish state of Israel. He could deplore publicly the Palestinian Authority’s “Pay-For-Slay Program,” which rewards past, and incentivizes future, acts of terrorism. He could do these things, and more, to relieve the anxiety of Jews at the papacy’s seeming indifference to Jewish suffering. But will he?

Comments

  1. No one cares about Jews unless they can be blamed
    Scratch a non-Jew and you inevitably find some anti-Semitism.
    Sorry, even the pontiff reeks of anti-Semitism.
    Israel has to be crazy to yield anything

    • “Scratch a non-Jew and you inevitably find some anti-Semitism.”

      This is not True of every non-Jew.

    • That is not true. There are hundreds of millions of non-Jews who are free of that pathological condition. Some of them write for this website. Some of them read what is posted at this website.

      • Genesis 18:

        20 And the LORD said: ‘Verily, the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and, verily, their sin is exceeding grievous.
        21I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto Me; and if not, I will know.’
        22And the men turned from thence, and went toward Sodom; but Abraham stood yet before the LORD.
        23And Abraham drew near, and said: ‘Wilt Thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
        [….}
        32And he said: ‘Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once. Peradventure ten shall be found there.’ And He said: ‘I will not destroy it for the ten’s sake.’
        33And the LORD went His way, as soon as He had left off speaking to Abraham; and Abraham returned unto his place.

        ………..you are among the righteous

      • Many thanks, Hugh, for all you have done over the years to expose and condemn antisemitism. You’ve done more – much more, in fact – in this endeavor than most Jews have. Bless you.

      • Hundreds of millions? No, absolutely not. You’re living in a dreamworld where somehow an enormous number of people are immune to propaganda. Maybe a few million in the US, a few thousand in Europe and a few thousand in Canada. The rest are lost.

      • and yet-continuing in the unending tradition of supersession integral to Christianity,

        “Shocking discovery: Crucifixes erected at Jewish tomb on Mount of Olives

        Arieh King blasts the installation of crucifixes at the Jewish holy site, urges government intervention to enforce law protecting religious heritage.”

        Petty, insulting and aggressive behaviors that never end. These Churches are unconcerned by the deaths and evil they perpetrate.

        • problem for the world, is that the Torah, the Ketuviym (the Writings) and the Navi’im (the Prophets.), describes the history of the Jewish people. That is my history.

          And the world cannot forgive the Jewish people for their history. So they claim it, change it, reinterpret it, discredit parts that they find inconvenient, and call it OLD.

          And all need to silence and diminish and often kill the Jewish people, to solidify their claims to the history of the Jewish people.

    • Please don’t paint everyone with a broad brush like that, especially on this site. I Can assure you there are exceedingly few anti-semites who post and read posts here, and most of them are not Jewish.

    • Leo XIV is displaying the usual Popish behavior of ignoring the Jewish hostages being tortured, starved, and murdered in Gaza.
      Leo was repeating the silence of Pope Pius XII who never mentioned the six million Jews being annihilated in the Nazis’ Final Solution genocide. He is just another in a centuries-long line of antisemitic popes.
      Pius’s silence implied consent, causing him to be remembered as “Hitler’s Pope”.
      Pius excommunicated all Catholics who joined the Communist Party, but not the German and Austrian Catholics who tortured and murdered innocent civilians.
      He thought that the Nazis would protect the Church against the godless Russians.
      The Church had a 1,700 year history of demonizing, blaming, and persecuting all European Jews. This ended in 1964 with Pope John XXIII’s declaration that the Vatican’s teaching that the Jews killed Christ was untrue and not to be believed.

      • To stop this, the text of the Christian Bible, which contains more than 100 antisemitic verses, would have to be heavily edited.

        • That is not true. Those verses were written by Jews.
          There is nothing “antisemitic” in the Christian Scriptures.
          There was a lot of hatred toward Jesus and His disciples, but it came from other Jews, and was not because Jesus and His disciples were Jews.

          The Romans didn’t like any of them….except for a few Romans who put faith in Jesus…but those guys were not Christian.

    • Deed, not Creed. That is the shortest description of Torah Judaism. And anyone can via deed, deserve and find that firmer divinity, that reward. That is the Jewish belief. And yes, the creator of the Universe did say that others would haunt and hate Jews, and that is due to the human fallibility of discovering that there is a creator to the entire Universe. Jews are by Torah and writings merely servants of that idea who are obligated to bring light to other nations, and for that, they would be despised. That is part of human nature. Not all humans fall prey to that, but everyone wants to be number one. So the desire brings this out in that ugly form, that resentment, that jew hatred. Don’t be so severe…. though that is understandable.

    • I am a Christian, but not a Catholic.
      This is one of the reasons why..
      The Pope’s omission is shameful to us, but of great assistance to muslims who want to destroy us.
      Ban Islam.
      Protect our children.

      • In my opinion, both the Catholic’s and Muslim’s are ruled by Satan !!!

      • You make a good argument, but it does beg the question of which leader of any major Christian denomination is anti-islamic, in contrast to the recent popes. For Protestants, the Anglican church is either #1 or #2, and they’re headed by King Charles III and Justin Welby, neither of who are anti-islam. On the Orthodox side, the largest Orthodox church is the Russian, and that’s led by Sergei Kirill, who is busy forming partnerships w/ imams

        So are there any major Christian denominations that openly denounce islam for either theological or civilizational reasons?

    • Big Dude, I am not Jewish, but I am *not* an antisemite. That is true of most here at Jihad Watch. Are you saying that Robert Spencer, despite his years of supporting Israel and Jews against Jihad terror, is secretly antisemitic?

  2. I still think Leo XIV is better than Francis I but this doesn’t say much. I prefer a Benedict XVI or even better an Urban II. I also continue to welcome what Thomas Aquinas and Dante had to say about Mohammed.

  3. Back then that man was ordained as Pope Leo XiV many people were very hopeful and earnestly believed the he would be much better then Pope Francis .

    So soon after Pope Leo obtained the papal chair ,I had keyboarded on some other sites. “Let’s not be naive , for in the history many popes had , at first appeared to be good decent godly men but later they had proven that it just wasn’t realistic , they were terrible men.”

  4. It seems he’s a rubber stamp of the old terror supporter. After all, the late, not so great, ‘pope’ picked him to be his successor.

    • I seem unable to reply to your
      post above…so I post here for you

      “somehistory says
      Aug 6, 2025 at 12:08 pm

      That is not true. Those verses were written by Jews.
      There is nothing “antisemitic” in the Christian Scriptures.
      There was a lot of hatred toward Jesus and His disciples, but it came from other Jews, and was not because Jesus and His disciples were Jews.”

      The “Jews” you cite were
      “Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Hellenistic culture and religion. It emerged in the diaspora and in Judea under the influence of Alexander the Great and his successors, “….google for more information…

      the “woke” Jews in the time of Jesus

      Like the apostle Paul, who was
      SAUL OF TARSUS (from the Jewish Encyclopedia

      “The actual founder of the Christian Church as opposed to Judaism; born before 10 C.E.; died after 63. The records containing the views and opinions of the opponents of Paul and Paulinism are no longer in existence; and the history of the early Church has been colored by the writers of the second century, who were anxious to suppress or smooth over the controversies of the preceding period, as is shown in the Acts of the Apostles and also by the fact that the Epistles ascribed to Paul, as has been proved by modern critics, are partly spurious (Galatians, Ephesians, I and II Timothy, Titus, and others) and partly interpolated.

      Not a Hebrew Scholar; a Hellenist.
      Saul (whose Roman cognomen was Paul; see Acts xiii. 9) was born of Jewish parents in the first decade of the common era at Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts ix. 11, xxi. 39, xxii. 3). The claim in Rom. xi. 1 and Phil. iii. 5 that he was of the tribe of Benjamin, suggested by the similarity of his name with that of the first Israelitish king, is, if the passages are genuine, a false one, no tribal lists or pedigrees of this kind having been in existence at that time (see Eusebius, “Hist. Eccl.” i. 7, 5; Pes. 62b; M. Sachs, “Beiträge zur Sprach- und Alterthumsforschung,” 1852, ii. 157). Nor is there any indication in Paul’s writings or arguments that he had received the rabbinical training ascribed to him by Christian writers, ancient and modern; least of all could he have acted or written as he did had he been, as is alleged (Acts xxii. 3), the disciple of Gamaliel I., the mild Hillelite. His quotations from Scripture, which are all taken, directly or from memory, from the Greek version, betray no familiarity with the original Hebrew text.,,”

      and here…..from:
      Demetrios Constantelos
      The Historical Development of Greek Orthodoxy
      From: Understanding the Greek Orthodox Church, Hellenic College Press, Boston 1990.

      “Soon after its inception, Christianity was promulgated in the Greek-speaking world of the Roman Empire. It was propagated through the medium of the Greek language; it was interpreted and clarified by the Fathers of Christianity, who were either Greek in origin or Hellenized and who spoke and wrote in Greek. Christian creeds and canons were written and codified in the Greek language by local and ecumenical synods as well. The New Testament books themselves and much of the important literature of the Christian religion of the first ten centuries were written in Greek. Greek philosophical thought and learning were utilized in defining Christian doctrines. Even Western Church Fathers such as Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine, who wrote in the Latin language, reveal the influence of Greek thought in their writings….”

      (and I am never notified of followup comments by email…I wish that would happen)

      • I didn’t specifically cite any certain Jews. Your comment to me is not applicable as you are writing stuff about which I didn’t comment.

        Jesus was a Jew. His first disciples were all Jews. But they were hated because Jesus said the Law was fulfilled in Him; and His disciples….including the ones who wrote about Him…were going to follow Him and not keep following the Law given to the Hebrew people through Moses.
        The Jews who opposed Jesus saw Him and His disciples as apostates to the Law.
        There is nothing in the books written about Him which teach hatred of the Jews.

        • I strongly suggest you read the book ‘A Moral Reckoning’ by Daniel Goldhagen. He identifies the antisemitism in the 4 Gospels, The Acts and the Epistles, and explores the historical consequences leading to the Holocaust.

        • Well, you can keep all of your suggestion, “strong” or otherwise.

          When I rea the Bible, I can see for myself what it says.

        • his followers were Hellenists

          very influenced by Greek, culture, religion and mainly spoke the language

          and you also may want to read the writings of the Church “DOCTORS” and what they wrote and preached about Jews.

          “What does it mean to be a “doctor of the church”? Who has been designated this title and why? Who are the doctors of the church?

          A doctor of the church is a person whose teaching on faith has been deemed sound and of benefit to the church through their writing, study, or research. Along with significant theological contribution, the person must also display a high degree of sanctity, which is why all church doctors are also canonized saints. A third requirement to be named a doctor of the church is formal proclamation as such by the pope or an ecumenical council. “

      • here is an author you may find interesting

        He is best known for his complete translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls into English;[1] his research focused on the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Ancient Hebrew writings in Aramaic such as the Targumim, and on the life and religion of Jesus.

        Vermes was one of the most important voices in contemporary Jesus research,[2] and he has been described as the greatest Jesus scholar of his time.[3] Vermes’ written work on Jesus focuses principally on the Jewishness of the historical Jesus,[4] as seen in the broader context of the narrative scope of Jewish history and theology, while questioning and challenging the basis of the Christian doctrine on Jesus.[5]

        one of his books

        Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels

        • As I responded to ‘roger’ I can read the Bible for myself. I don’t need a bunch of other imperfect humans spouting their own ideas from their personal human view, telling me what the Bible writers meant.

          No one alive today, was alive back then. To make claims about who believed what other than what the Bible says about them as they wrote, is just so much speculation and personal belief.
          I have no more time or inclination to read such as I do to read what the book of demon filth regarding the false god and fake prophet of islime has to say.

          So, not wishing to read them, having no need to read them, I decline to read them.

  5. Another incompetent, virtue-signaling Pope fails to identify Islam as an Antichrist ideology of hatred, discrimination, violence, and terrorism against Christians. Allah teaches and promotes terrorism, hatred, and violence by Muslims against Jews and Christians because Infidelity, Unbelief, and Blasphemy are a CRIME AGAINST ALLAH(Quran 5:82; 9:29; 60:4; 98:6-7; 49:14-15; etc.).

    EVERY Muslim prayer begins with Quran 1:1-, cursing Jews and Christians 15+ times a day. Demonic Allah in Quran 5:51 says, “O you who have believed[Muslims], DO NOT TAKE the Jews and the Nasara(Christians) as friends. They are friends to one another. And whoever among you takes them as friends, so surely he is of them. Surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.” See also Quran 2:63-65; 3:115; 4:144; 5:59-60, 82; 7:166.

    Moreover, Allah in Qur’an 8:39 says, “And engage in war with them[Non-Muslims] until there will not be sedition and the religion will be completely to Allah…”. Allah desires to fill hell with Non-Muslims because they DO NOT ACCEPT Islam to become Muslims(Quran 7:18; 11:119; 32:13, 35:8 etc.).

  6. How about all those starving people, children in the Sudan. Christians. How about all those people across african states who’ve been murdererd, and what about all those children…. not a word. Crickets from this one.

  7. Pope Leo XIV has a chance to make a difference – and he is squandering it.

  8. And no one cares the genocides or wars in Africa, South Asia, Myanmar, the persecution of people in North Korea, Middle East etc.

  9. As I suspected, this Pope is just a Francis retread. The conclave of Cardinals that elected him were mostly hand chosen by Francis., and the policy of coddling Islamic terrorism prevails. Does anyone remember the truly horrific comments of the departed Francis at the time of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. I will remind you. He said, “ if anyone insults my mother, they can expect a punch in the nose.” In other words, the Hebdo cartoonists had it coming for having the temerity to lampoon Mohamed.
    Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

  11. On May, 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was nearly assassinated by a Turkish assailant. I think because of that, popes are likely to be pro Islam and anti Jewish.

    • Yeah, but that attempt was driven by the communists, not the jihadists. It was the Bulgarian secret service, acting at the behest of the KGB, which hired Mehmet Agha to try and assassinate Pope John Paul II, due to the interest he took in his home country Poland and using the church to inspire the Solidarity opposition to the Soviets. While Agha may have been a muslim and even a jihadist, there wasn’t a jihadist plot behind the attempt, but a communist one

  12. I guess Catholics listen and believe every word this Popey fellow has to say but I certainly dont.
    Unless he was thinking of the young men coming over from Gaza who invaded Israel and raped and beheaded the young girls at a Music Festival, was he talking about those young people ?…
    Abolish the Vatican as they are certainly not Christians.

  14. Warum leisten wir uns immer wieder religiöse und politische Führer, die rein gar nichts für Frieden, für moralische Werte und Bekämpfung von extremistischer – vor allem muslimischer Gewalt beitragen?
    Diese Floskeln vom Papst sind Allgemeinplätze, die den Zeitgeist bedienen und man dafür kein hochbezahltes und einflussreiches Amt braucht.

  16. Prevost from Shitcago . Another fake Catholic and a woke scumbag. Certainly a leftist like Francis. Here we go, probably in the same path as Pedo Francis, too. Just a new Pope Pedo CCLXVII “Protector of Pedophiles”, ”Absolver of Sexual Deviance” and “Promoter of Muslim Invasion & Jihad”. This leftist shit needs to stop. Leo XIV, eh? I am hoping that Vigano or even pro-life Strickland will spark a schism. I’ll go with them. Catholicism is dead to me.

  19. I can recommend several methods by which we might alleviate the “suffering” of the young people of Gaza, all of which involve the very sudden conversion of chemicals into gas and energy.

  20. Just move along, people. Nothing to see here. New Pope just the same as the last Pope. Surprised that people are surprised at that. But here we are and there you go.

  21. Classic act. The catholic church over recent years under the BIG boys have been keen on demonstrating their passion for Islam, flying around hugging and kissing nasty Islamic clerics who preach nothing other than violence towards any human being not sucking up to their game. And to think that Popes can actually find the time for those who are murdering Christians in so many countries is disgraceful. Unfortunately the trajectory will not change!!!

  22. Another political pope .
    Apparently this is the will of the Vatican whether the flock likes it or not .

  23. Pope Leo Mentions Suffering in Gaza, Silent on Hostages
    …………………………………………..

    This is sickening–but should surprise no one.

  24. Find someone two thousand years old who lived in the ME and still has their mental faculties, and then you might have the “facts.”

    Every person has a world view. Just because a Jew wants to see anti-Jew in the words written by Christians, who were also Jews, doesn’t mean that the hate is there.

    And Paul wrote a lot of things which showed his mindset as a Jew, a lawyer and a Christian who had formerly persecuted Christians. Some guy trying to write *about* the man in later years proves nothing except the biases of the one writing.

    I’ll let you know if you ever “disrupt” me. Now you go have a nice day.

    • and……don’t forget the Gospels were written in Greek…not the Jew language

      Hellenist

  25. Geza Vermes was hardly “some guy”

    Until his death, he was a Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies and Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, but continued to teach at the Oriental Institute in Oxford.

    He had edited the Journal of Jewish Studies[17] from 1971 to his death, and from 1991 he had been director of the Oxford Forum for Qumran Research at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.[18]

    He inspired the creation of the British Association for Jewish Studies (BAJS) in 1975 and of the European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) in 1981 and acted as founding president for both.

    Vermes was a Fellow of the British Academy;
    a Fellow of the European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities;
    holder of an Oxford D. Litt. (1988)
    and of honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh (1989), University of Durham (1990),
    University of Sheffield (1994)
    and the Central European University of Budapest (2008).

    He was awarded the Wilhelm Bacher Memorial Medal by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1996),
    the Memorial Medal of the city of Makó, his place of birth (2008) and the keys of the cities of Monroe LA and Natchez MS (2009). He received a vote of congratulation from the US House of Representatives, proposed by the Representative of Louisiana on 17 September 2009.

    In the course of a lecture tour in the United States in September 2009, Vermes spoke at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, at Duke University in Durham NC, at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore MD, and at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and at Baton Rouge.

    On 23 January 2012 Penguin Books celebrated at Wolfson College, Oxford, the golden jubilee of Vermes’s The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, which has sold an estimated half-a-million copies worldwide. A “Fiftieth anniversary” edition has been issued in the Penguin Classics series.”

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