Caritas Internationalis joins more than 160 humanitarian organisations in a unified appeal for the immediate end to the deadly war in Gaza. As the conflict continues to escalate, the Catholic Church’s humanitarian arm calls for attention to the dire conditions that are being faced by civilians and urges international actors to uphold the principles of humanitarian law and human dignity.
Caritas serves at the core of the Catholic Church, serving the poor and promoting charity and justice throughout the world.
Starvation or death
Palestinians in Gaza have been given an impossible choice of risking death in search of food and water or remaining trapped in conditions of starvation.
In recent weeks, over 500 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 4,000 have been injured as they came under Israeli attack while they were attempting to access food distribution.
The destruction in the Gaza Strip and the blockade of aid mean that civilians are given no choice but to walk for hours in dangerous terrains and active conflict zones to receive food in militarised distribution sites. They have no protection, and in recent weeks, repeated attacks have been perpetrated with no regard to humanitarian law.
UN statistics
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, since October 2023, over 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes and bombings, while another 11,000 are missing. An unknown number of babies born in the Strip since the start of the conflict have died due to conflict, hunger, untreated diseases, and injuries.
Papal appeal for peace
Pope Leo XIV has renewed his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Speaking in St. Peter’s Square on 28 May 2025, he to the consciences of world leaders “rising ever more insistently to the heavens, the cries of mothers and fathers who clutch the lifeless bodies of their children, and who are continually forced to move about in search of a little food and water and safer shelter from bombardments.”
“To those responsible, I renew my appeal: stop the fighting”, he said.
Not a humanitarian response
With over two million people forcibly displaced, Caritas Internationalis warns that Gaza’s future is dependent on an urgent and ethical international response.
For over 20 months, Caritas notes, Palestinians have been enduring endless bombardment, weaponisation of food and water, repeated displacement, and systematic dehumanisation. The normalisation of suffering, it says, cannot and should not become the global standard.
Source: vaticannews.va