From Rome, Pope Francis expressed his concern for the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"May the attacks and weaponry cease. Please!" he said. "And let it be understood that terrorism and war do not lead to any resolutions but only to the death and suffering of so many innocent people. War is a defeat. Every war is a defeat. Let us pray that there be peace in Israel and in Palestine."
At the beginning, the policy of the Vatican in the Middle East was focused on the protection of holy sites. Before the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 1948, Pope Pius XII asked for a legal safeguard of the status of the Holy Land.
Within the following two years, Pope Pius XII published at least three documents offering his mediation and asking for peace and aid for refugees. He asked Catholics not to be indifferent to the fate of such an important place for the Church: "We do not believe that the Christian world could contemplate indifferently or in sterile indignation that sacred land (…) still trampled by the military at war and shaken by bombing."
The Vatican's advocacy for the Holy Land continued in the following pontificates. Pope Paul VI visited in 1964, and the Vatican continued to speak out about the needs of Palestinians. Pope John Paul II met with the president of the State of Palestine in 1987. And a few years later, an agreement was reached between the Vatican and the Palestinian National Authority.
Pope Benedict XVI also traveled to the Holy Land and even organized a synod, which emphasized: "It is not acceptable to resort to theological and biblical positions that use the word of God to wrongly justify injustices."
The Vatican has pushed for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. Pope Francis reaffirmed this during his visit in 2014. He also met with the Israeli president and Palestinian Authority president at the Vatican in a historic meeting to pray for peace in the Middle East.
In 2017, Palestine officially opened its Embassy to the Holy See.