ROME: Pope Francis called on Wednesday for \u201carms to be silenced\u201d around the world in his Christmas address, appealing for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan as he denounced the \u201cextremely grave\u201d humanitarian situation in Gaza.
\nHe used his traditional message to the world\u2019s 1.4 billion Catholics to call for talks for a just peace in Ukraine as the country was pummelled by 170 Russian missiles and drones in a Christmas morning barrage Kyiv branded as \u201cinhumane\u201d.
\nHis voice breathless, the 88-year-old pontiff also appealed for a ceasefire in Gaza and for the freeing of Israeli hostages held there by Hamas.
\n\u201cI think of the Christian communities in Israel and Palestine, particularly in Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is extremely grave,\u201d he told thousands of the faithful gathered in front of St Peter\u2019s Basilica in Rome for the \u201cUrbi et Orbi\u201d (\u201cto the city and the world\u201d) address.
\nCelebrations muted in Israeli-occupied Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ, and Gaza
\n\u201cMay there be a ceasefire, may the hostages be released and aid be given to the people worn out by hunger and by war.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ROME: Pope Francis called on Wednesday for \u201carms to be silenced\u201d around the world in his Christmas address, appealing for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan as he denounced the \u201cextremely grave\u201d humanitarian situation in Gaza. He used his traditional message to the world\u2019s 1.4 billion Catholics to call for talks for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4168,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4169,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4167\/revisions\/4169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}