Pope Francis has condemned the bombing of children in Gaza as “cruelty”, a day after the territory’s rescue agency said an Israeli air strike killed seven children from one family, AFP reports.

“Yesterday they did not allow the Patriarch (of Jerusalem) into Gaza as promised. Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war,” he told members of the government of the Holy See.

“I want to say it because it touches my heart.”

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