Sara Netanyahu appeals to Pope Francis to help free Gaza hostages

Sara Netanyahu has called upon Pope Francis to exert influence on Hamas and urge the terrorist organization to release hostages in Gaza.

Netanyahu sent a letter to the Pope on Sunday after appealing to 33 female leaders worldwide, including First Lady Jill Biden, in previous weeks.

She told the Pope that she was writing not only as the wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but as a mother and a woman. She reminded the Pope of the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, which involved raping and mutilating men, women and children, as well as taking more than 240 people hostage.

“Seventy-eight days after the atrocities, Hamas is still holding 129 men, women and children hostage,” she wrote. “Many of them are wounded and sick. They suffer from hunger, and some are denied the basic medicines they need to survive.”

She then cited the case of 25-year-old Noa Argamani, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival. Netanyahu noted that Argamani’s mother is battling stage 4 brain cancer.

“Your holiness, I ask for your personal intervention in this matter,” the prime minister’s wife said. “Please use your influence to demand the unconditional release of all the hostages without delay.”

Sara asked the Pope to call on Red Cross to visit hostages

Netanyahu also asked the Pope to call on the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit all the hostages and deliver them vital medicine. 

“So far, the Red Cross has failed to insist on these deliverables,” Netanyahu said. “Your intervention could tilt the balance and save precious lives.”

Pope Francis came under fire last week from several prominent rabbis after he suggested that Israel was using “terrorism” in Gaza. He commented after two women at the Holy Family Parish Church courtyard in Gaza City were reportedly shot dead by Israeli snipers. 

“I continue to receive very grave and painful news from Gaza,” the Pope said. “Unarmed civilians are the objects of bombings and shootings. And this happened even inside the Holy Family parish complex, where there are no terrorists, but nuns, families, children, people who are sick or disabled.”  

In a post on X, he called for prayers and “tangible aid” for the people of Gaza.

“We do not want to leave them alone,” the Pope said. 

South African Chief Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein, in a video he posted on his YouTube channel, accused the Pope of “surreptitiously colluding with the forces of evil” for comparing Israel’s “just war of self-defense to the barbarism of Hamas.”

Chief Rabbi of Israel urged Pope Francis

Chief Rabbi of Israel David Lau urged Pope Francis to retract his comments. 

In a letter, the rabbi wrote:

“I heard your statement following the attack on two women who were in the church compound in Gaza. I, too, am very sorry for their unnecessary death... However, I wish to comment on one statement: ‘terror.’ This statement about the occurrence is incorrect and even outrageous.”

He said that the killing of the two women at the church was “an unfortunate mistake” that “does not turn us into terrorists.”