ROME: Pope Francis called on Wednesday for “arms to be silenced” around the world in his Christmas address, appealing for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan as he denounced the “extremely grave” humanitarian situation in Gaza.

He used his traditional message to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics to call for talks for a just peace in Ukraine as the country was pummelled by 170 Russian missiles and drones in a Christmas morning barrage Kyiv branded as “inhumane”.

His voice breathless, the 88-year-old pontiff also appealed for a ceasefire in Gaza and for the freeing of Israeli hostages held there by Hamas.

“I think of the Christian communities in Israel and Palestine, particularly in Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is extremely grave,” he told thousands of the faithful gathered in front of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome for the “Urbi et Orbi” (“to the city and the world”) address.

Celebrations muted in Israeli-occupied Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ, and Gaza

“May there be a ceasefire, may the hostages be released and aid be given to the people worn out by hunger and by war.”

Francis also extended his call for peace to Sudan, which has been ravaged by 20 months of brutal civil war and where millions are under the threat of famine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky railed at Russia’s attempt to take out his country’s battered power grid, with one energy worker killed in the 13th major attack on the system this year.

“Putin deliberately chose Christmas to attack,” he said. “What could be more inhumane? More than 70 missiles, including ballistic missiles, and more than 100 attack drones.” Ukraine has been marking Christmas on December 25 for the past two years rather than on January 7, when most Orthodox believers celebrate, as a snub to Moscow.

However, Russia said five people were killed in Ukrainian strikes on its territory overnight, including one by a downed drone in North Ossetia in the Caucasus.

Limited joy in Bethlehem

The feast day was also marred by tragedy when an Azerbaijan Airlines jet carrying 67 people from Baku to the Chechen capital Grozny crashed in western Kazakhstan, officials said. Thirty-two survivors have been reported but 35 others are feared dead.

Christmas celebrations were also muted in the biblical birthplace of Jesus, the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem.

Since the war in Gaza began, the Palestinian town has done away with its giant Christmas tree and the elaborate decorations that normally draw throngs of tourists.

“This year we limited our joy,” Bethlehem mayor Anton Salman said.

The Latin patriarch, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, told a small crowd there on Tuesday that he had just returned from Gaza, where he “saw everything destroyed, poverty, disaster”.

“But I also saw life – they don’t give up. So you should not give up either. Never.” At Manger Square, in the heart of Bethlehem, a group of scouts held a parade that broke the silence.

“We want life, not death,” read banners carried by them and “Stop the Gaza genocide now!”

Elsewhere in the Middle East, hundreds of people took to the streets in Christian areas of Damascus to protest the burning of a Christmas tree in a Syrian town, just over two weeks after rebels ousted president Bashar al-Assad.

“If we’re not allowed to live our Christian faith in our country, as we used to, then we don’t belong here anymore,” said a demonstrator who gave his name as George.

In Buenos Aires, a Christmas solidarity dinner for the homeless fed around three thousand people at a time when more than half of Argentina’s population is affected by poverty.

And in Paris, worshippers gathered at the Notre Dame cathedral for the first Christmas mass since its reopening following a devastating fire in 2019.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2024