The Pope Leo XIV made this Tuesday, before leaving Lebanon to return to Rome, an urgent appeal for “attacks and hostilities to cease” and that “no one believes that armed struggle brings any benefit.”
In the airport of the Lebanese capital before returning to Rome, he wished, in the most forceful speech of his trip, that “the entire Middle East commit to this spirit of fraternity and effort for peace, even those who today consider themselves enemies.”
“To all I extend my embrace and my wish for peace. And I also reiterate an urgent appeal: that the attacks and hostilities cease. That no one believes that armed struggle brings any benefit. Weapons kill; negotiation, mediation and dialogue build. Let us all choose peace as a path, not just as a goal!” he said.
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The pontiff arrived in Lebanon just a few days after an Israeli attack south of Beirut, in a new violation of the truce signed a year ago and in which one of the members of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah was killed.
Hezbollah had asked the Pope in an open letter before his arrival to “reject” Israel’s aggressions against the country during his visit.
The agreement reached a year ago, mediated by France and the United States, stipulated that Israel should cease hostilities and completely withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah should withdraw its fighters and dismantle its military infrastructure.
According to data collected by the Lebanese newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour, the Israeli Army has violated the ceasefire more than 12,000 times with the aim of eliminating Hezbollah, with attacks in which they have killed more than 300 people.
Leo XIV said he was very happy to have been able to fulfill Francis’ dream of visiting this country and excited by the “brief visit” this morning to the port of Beirut, “where the explosion has devastated not only a place, but so many lives” and where he prayed for the victims.
“I carry with me the pain and thirst for truth and justice of so many families, of an entire country,” he emphasized.
The inhabitants of Beirut are calling for the truth to be revealed and justice to be served, as the investigations into the explosion in which more than 200 people died, thousands were injured and there was enormous devastation, are stalled.
The Pope has been very prudent in describing the situation in Lebanon during the trip, but in the final greeting, a novelty in papal trips, he wanted to greet the Lebanese whom he could not visit: “Tripoli and the north, the Bekaa and the south of the country, who are particularly experiencing a situation of conflict and uncertainty”.
And he said goodbye with the words of Saint John Paul II: “Lebanon, more than a country, is a message, let us learn to work together and to hope together, so that it may be so”.
