Pope Leo XIV receives call from Netanyahu after Gaza church attack

Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, and Pope Leo XIV. / Credit: Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0/Vatican Media ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 18, 2025 / 14:00 pm (CNA). Pope Leo XIV received a phone call Friday from Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, following yesterday’s Israeli army attack on Holy Family Church in Gaza.According to a statement from the Holy See Press Office, the pope received the call at Castel Gandolfo, where he is on vacation.On July 17, the Israeli army struck with a projectile Holy Family Parish, the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip, which had been used as a shelter for more than 600 people since the beginning of the war in October 2023.The attack killed three people and left a number of injured, some of them seriously.During the conversation, the Holy Father renewed his call for the urgent reactivation of the negotiation process in order to establish a ceasefire and end the war.He again expressed his deep concern for the humanitarian situation of the population in Gaza, “whose heartbreaking price is being paid, in particular, by children, the elderly, and the sick.”Finally, Pope Leo XIV reiterated the urgency of protecting places of worship and, above all, the faithful and all people living in both Palestine and Israel.Also on Friday, the Holy Father called Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, to whom he expressed his strong condemnation of the attack and asserted that “it is time to stop this slaughter.”Israel Defense Forces stated that “fragments of a projectile fired during a military operation in the area mistakenly hit the church” and that the cause of the incident is currently under investigation.This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.