Pope Francis has kicked off international Christmas celebrations with a lament – that Jesus’s message of peace is being drowned out by the “futile logic of conflict” within the very land he was born.
Israel’s deadliest-ever conflict on Gaza solid a shadow because the pontiff presided over the night Mass on Sunday, attended by 6,500 individuals at St Peter’s Basilica on the Vatican.
“Tonight, our hearts are in Bethlehem, the place the Prince of Peace is as soon as extra rejected by the futile logic of conflict, by the conflict of arms that even right this moment prevents him from discovering room on the earth,” stated the Catholic chief.
The 87-year-old pontiff stated the real message of Christmas is peace and love, urging individuals to not be obsessive about worldly success and the “idolatry of consumerism”.
He spoke of “the all-too-human thread that runs by means of historical past: the search for worldly energy and may, fame and glory, which measures every part when it comes to success, outcomes, numbers and figures, a world obsessive about achievement”.
“Tonight, love adjustments historical past,” he stated, draped in white robes.
Bethlehem, the biblical metropolis within the occupied West Financial institution the place Christians imagine Jesus Christ was born in a manger greater than 2,000 years in the past, effectively cancelled the annual Christmas celebrations that usually draw hundreds of vacationers.
The city did away with its big Christmas tree, marching bands and flamboyant nativity scene this yr, settling for only a few festive lights.
Within the centre of city, an enormous Palestinian flag has been unfolded with a banner declaring, “The bells of Bethlehem ring for a ceasefire in Gaza.”
“Lots of people are dying for this land,” stated Nicole Najjar, an 18-year-old scholar. “It’s actually exhausting to rejoice whereas our individuals are dying.”
Francis spoke hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to combat deeper into the Palestinian enclave of Gaza after his troops endured one of many worst days of losses of their floor conflict.
The Well being Ministry in Gaza stated an Israeli assault late on Sunday killed at least 70 people within the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza and destroyed a number of homes.
A complete of at the very least 20,424 individuals, most of them girls and kids, have been killed within the enclave because the conflict started, in response to the territory’s Well being Ministry.
![Gaza Christmas](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/2023-12-24T135637Z_1060470367_RC2M35ARRTFG_RTRMADP_3_CHRISTMAS-SEASON-PATRIARCH-1703454405.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513)
“Bethlehem is celebrating Christmas with disappointment and sorrow due to what’s taking place in Gaza and in all of the West Financial institution, all Palestinian territories,” stated Palestinian Minister of Tourism Rula Maayah.
The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, arrived on Sunday on the Church of the Nativity, clad in a conventional black and white keffiyeh.
“Our coronary heart goes to Gaza, to all individuals in Gaza however a particular consideration to our Christian neighborhood in Gaza who’s struggling,” he stated.
“We’re right here to wish and to ask not just for a ceasefire, a ceasefire shouldn’t be sufficient… violence generates solely violence.”
![People light candles next to a nativity scene decorated to honour the victims in Gaza and asking for peace, displayed in Manger Square, adjacent to the Church of the Nativity, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, on Friday](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AP23357610239700-1703406664.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513)
Francis has made quite a few appeals for a ceasefire within the battle raging in Gaza and has known as for the discharge of all captives.
When the Christmas Eve Mass ended, the pope, pushed in a wheelchair, moved down the basilica with the life-sized statue of child Jesus on his lap and flanked by kids carrying bouquets.
The statue was positioned in a manger in a nativity scene within the basilica.
At midday (11:00 GMT) on Monday, Francis will ship his Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi” (to the town and the world) message and blessing.