Pope Francis expresses concern over escalation in Lebanon

Addressing large crowds in the Vatican on Wednesday, Pope Francis said that the escalation in Lebanon caused by heightened tensions between Israel and Hezbollah in recent days is “unacceptable”.

In his speech he expressed closeness to the Lebanese people, “who have already suffered too much in the recent past”.

“I hope that the international community will make every effort to stop this terrible escalation,” he said.

Some 90,000 Lebanese citizens have been displaced since Monday, according to the UN, as both sides veer closer to all-out war.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Wednesday that the number of internally displaced people has reached more than 200,000, adding to the 111,696 already forced to flee since October last year.

Meanwhile, at least 15 people were killed and dozens were injured in Lebanon on Wednesday, the country’s health ministry said, after the Israeli military launched another wave of what it said were “extensive strikes” on the south of the country.

Earlier in the day, Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets into Israel, including a longer-range projectile that set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv and central Israel.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also warned against escalation in Lebanon, which he said is threatening to explode into a full-fledged war.

A sobering welcome awaits Pope Francis in Belgium

In his speech on Wednesday, Pope Francis also asked faithful at the Vatican to pray for him ahead of his upcoming trip to Belgium and Luxembourg later this week.

“I entrust to your prayers my journey that I will undertake tomorrow to Luxembourg and Belgium, that it may be the occasion for a new momentum of faith in those countries,” Francis said.

The visit remains in place despite the pontiff cancelling all his audiences earlier on Monday because of a “slight flu-like state.”

Fresh off a four-nation tour of Asia, where he saw record-setting crowds and vibrant church communities, Pope Francis will receive a more subdued welcome in Belgium, where his visit will force the issue of the once-staunchly Catholic country’s history of clerical sex abuse and institutional cover-ups.

Abuse survivors have penned an open letter to Francis, asking him to launch a universal system of church reparations and assume responsibility for the wreckage that abuse has wrought on their lives. He will meet with 15 survivors during his four-day visit starting Thursday.

None of this was foreseen when Belgian King Philippe and Queen Mathilde met with Francis in the Vatican Apostolic Palace in September last year and invited him to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the founding of Belgium’s two Catholic universities.