Pope Leo XIV issued an urgent, renewed appeal for humanitarian access to Gaza on Tuesday evening, speaking directly to the treatment of activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla after Israeli forces intercepted the convoy last week, detaining and blindfolding some of those on board.
The Pontiff addressed journalists outside his residence in Castel Gandolfo, where he was asked about the flotilla — an international maritime movement carrying humanitarian supplies intended to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza, which has been in place since 2009. Reports that activists had been handcuffed and blindfolded during the May 19 interception drew widespread international condemnation.
Pope Leo did not hold back. “We must renew our appeal for the respect of the human rights” of every person, he said, making clear that his concern extended to all parties in the conflict, not only one side.
The Pope lamented that civilians in Gaza remain cut off from the aid they desperately need. “Unfortunately, the people of Gaza are still not receiving humanitarian aid,” he told reporters, attributing the growing wave of direct-action protests — including the flotilla itself — to that unresolved crisis.
The Global Sumud Flotilla, whose name draws from the Arabic word for steadfastness and resilience, had been carrying what organizers described as urgently needed food and medical supplies.
Provoking hatred
When pressed on what it signals when unarmed peace activists are met with force, Leo issued a stark warning about the broader consequences of such confrontations. “We are provoking more and more hatred,” he said. “Violence does not help. From any side.”
His words amounted to a rebuke not only of the interception itself, but of any escalatory response to the blockade’s humanitarian fallout.
Rather than endorse confrontation, Leo called for a return to the negotiating table, urging all involved to “seek, through dialogue, to resolve problems” while strictly respecting the human rights of everyone. He also issued what he described not as an invitation but “truly as an appeal”—pressing all authorities to assist the people of Gaza and support the beginning of reconstruction in a territory that has endured devastating conflict.
Tuesday’s remarks came just one day after the Pope released his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, in which he also raised concerns about the use of artificial intelligence in modern warfare — a theme he returned to briefly with these journalists, warning against technologies that remove human judgment from life-and-death decisions on the battlefield.
The Vatican has previously offered to facilitate delivery of humanitarian relief if goods were offloaded in Cyprus. The Holy See declined an invitation earlier this year to join the Trump administration’s so-called “Board of Peace” for Gaza, which the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem has described as a colonialist project.
