Catholic priests march near Vatican, calling Gaza war 'genocide'

More than 150 Catholic priests, friars and nuns, joined by a bishop, marched and prayed near St. Peter's Basilica on Tuesday to demand an end to what they described as genocide in Gaza.

The group carried a banner along the main boulevard leading to the Vatican inscribed with the names of 300 children killed during Israel's war in Gaza and southern Lebanon. The marchers did not enter Vatican territory and were accompanied by an Italian police escort.

"It is a genocide, (people are) murdered and slaughtered. How can we call it?" said Gianfranco Pasquariello, a Franciscan friar from Salerno. "Please suggest me another word? When there is precisely the intention of exterminating starting from innocence and children, that's the word."

Pasquariello, who held a placard reading "Christ died in Gaza," said a fellow brother had declined to join the demonstration after being accused of being friends with Hamas. "I told him that for me a Palestinian child is the same as a Jewish child. Except that now it is the Palestinian children who are being killed and we cannot remain indifferent," he said.

Franco Moscone, the bishop of Manfredonia, Italy, said the situation on the ground belied any talk of a truce. "Even talking about a truce in Gaza is a falsehood. The violence is continuing as before, drugs are prevented from entering, what is needed for life. The water wells are even closed," he said.

Moscone said the term genocide should be directed not at Jewish people, who endured the Holocaust, but at "a Jewish state system that has used history for other purposes and is using it. And denies the evidence."

Father Peter-John Pearson from Cape Town described conditions in Israel as apartheid, citing segregated residential areas and separate roads. "It's all apartheid over and over again, but it's also apartheid where powerful people in the name of an ideology destroy other people, steal their land, erase their memory," he said.

Organizers said the "Priests Against Genocide" network was formed in August 2025 and now includes more than 2,500 priests and bishops from five continents. After marching toward the Vatican, the protesters moved on to the Palestinian and Lebanese embassies and then to the Rome headquarters of the arms manufacturer Leonardo.

A number of experts, including those commissioned by a United Nations body, have said Israel's war in the Gaza Strip amounts to genocide, and Pope Francis once called for an investigation into whether a genocide had taken place. Israel has vehemently denied the accusation, saying it tries to avoid harming civilians and blaming their deaths on Hamas because the militants operated in densely populated areas.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in response to Hamas attacks that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on Oct. 7, 2023. Gaza health officials say over 73,000 Palestinians have died. They do not give a breakdown between civilians and militants, but say women and children make up nearly half of the dead.