ROME – Pope Francis’s top diplomat has called attack by Hamas militants on Israel “inhuman” and has reaffirmed Israel’s right to self-defence, but has cautioned that the military response must be “proportionate.”
Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, also condemned the taking of hostages and expressed the Holy See’s willingness to help negotiate their release.
On Friday afternoon Rome time, Parolin visited Israel’s embassy to the Holy See to express “his deep sentiments of pain and solidarity on the background of the terrible attack against Israel,” according to a social media post from Israeli Ambassador Raphael Schutz.
