Hostages freed from Gaza meet with Pope Francis, press campaign to bring remaining captives home

Pope Francis. Pic/AFP

A delegation of former hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and their relatives met Thursday with Pope Francis and expressed hope that the incoming and outgoing US administrations would work together to bring the remaining hostages home. The freed hostages included Yelena Troufanov, who was released last November but whose son Sasha remains in Gaza and appeared in a video released Wednesday by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.

'You see in the picture how my child has changed over the course of this year,' Yelena Troufanov told a news conference in Rome after the papal audience. 'I am very worried about his condition, I see that he is not in a good mental state and not in a good physical state.'

She and the other former hostages and relatives renewed their calls for a deal to bring the remaining hostages home, especially with winter approaching. They said they hoped the incoming Trump administration would work with the outgoing Biden administration to push the process forward.

The war started when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250, with dozens still in Gaza. Israel's subsequent campaign has killed more than 43,000 people, according to Gaza health officials, whose count doesn't distinguish between civilians and fighters, though they say more than half of the dead are women and children.

The war has ignited a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, driven Israel into increasing international isolation, with two world courts examining charges of war crimes, and had sparked a wave of protests on American campuses that have fuelled debate over the US role as Israel's key military and diplomatic supporter.

'We hope that with the election of Trump, together with Biden ' this is not about left and right ' we hope that Biden and Trump work together now to get the hostages back before the winter,' said Sharone Lifshitz, who accompanied her mother, Yocheved Lifshitz, to the audience.

Her mother, a longtime peace activist, was released Oct 23, 2023, but her father Oded remains in Gaza. Sharone Lifshitz, who wasn't kidnapped, thanked Francis for meeting with the delegation and said that he promised to pray for each of the hostages still being held.

Israel says that Hamas is holding about 65 hostages and the remains of about 35 others either killed on Oct 7, 2023, or who died in captivity.

'The pope is a few years older than my father. Both of them are men who spent a lifetime making this world a place that cares for the weak, that cares for each other, that reaches across religions and creeds to make it a place where humans, real humans, can live in dignity,' she said.

Louis Har, an Argentine-Israeli who was freed during an Israeli army raid in Rafah last February, said that he never imagined that he would meet the Argentine pope. He wept at one point recounting his ordeal to reporters gathered at the Rome headquarters of Italy's Jewish communities. He said that he had given the pope a necklace with a charm signifying hope.

'I felt his sincerity, his care, and that we didn't come in vain,' he said. 'There is someone listening to us. I hope that his prayers and his message will reach the whole world, because he has an impact on the whole world.'

Francis has tried to strike a balance in his comments on the Hamas attack in 2023 and the Israeli response, and conflicts in Gaza and southern Lebanon that have ensued. He has called for an immediate cease-fire, for the release of hostages and for humanitarian aid to get to Gaza.

He has also suggested that Israel's actions in Gaza and southern Lebanon are disproportionate and immoral, and says that he calls a Catholic parish in Gaza every day to check in on the people it is sheltering. He has met twice before with relatives of the hostages, and once with Palestinians whose families were affected by Israel's operations in Gaza.

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