Pope Leo Turkey and Lebanon visit

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Pope Leo said on Sunday that the only solution in the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people must include a Palestinian state, reaffirming the Vatican's position.

"We all know that at this time Israel still does not accept that solution, but we see it as the only solution," Leo, the first US pope, told journalists on a flight from Turkey to Lebanon during his first in-flight press conference.

"We are also friends with Israel, and we are seeking to be a mediating voice between the two parties that might help them close in on a solution with justice for everyone," added the pope, speaking in Italian.

Leo spoke in a brief eight-minute press conference focused on his visit to Turkey, which he visited from Thursday to Sunday on his first overseas trip since his election in May as leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church.

The pope said he and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan discussed both the Israel-Palestinian and Ukraine-Russia conflicts. Turkey has an important role to play helping end both wars, Leo said.

During his visit to Turkey, the pope warned that humanity's future was at risk because of the world's unusual number of bloody conflicts and condemned violence in the name of religion.

Leo critical of Israeli military actions in Gaza
Leo, who usually prefers using careful, diplomatic language, ramped up criticism earlier this year of Israel's military campaign in Gaza.
Turkey is predominantly Muslim but is also home to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world's 260 million Orthodox Christians.

Leo praised Turkey as an example of religious co-existence.

"People of different religions are able to live in peace," said the pope. "That is one example of what I think we all would be looking for throughout the world."

Leo is visiting Lebanon until Tuesday, when he returns to Rome.

Hours before Leo's arrival, crowds gathered along the roads from the airport to the presidential palace, waving Lebanese and Vatican flags. He will meet the president and prime minister and make an address, only his second to a foreign government.

Leaders in Lebanon, which hosts 1 million Syrian and Palestinian refugees and is also struggling to recover from years of economic crisis, are concerned about how the ongoing armed conflict would exacerbate the issues that Beirut is facing.

His convoy will pass through Beirut's southern suburbs - an area where Hezbollah holds sway. The group's Imam Mehdi Scouts are to hold a welcoming ceremony by the roadside as the convoy passes.

Leo, a relative unknown on the world stage before becoming pope in May, is being closely watched as he makes his first speeches overseas and interacts for the first time with people outside mainly Catholic Italy.On Saturday, Leo visited Istanbul's famed Blue Mosque, in his first visit as pope to a Muslim place of worship. He removed his shoes as a sign of respect but did not pray at the mosque as planned, which surprised Vatican officials.

The pope attended an Orthodox Christian liturgy on Sunday morning led by Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world's 260 million Orthodox Christians.

In remarks during the service, which was filled with Greek chants, Bartholomew said the world "expects a unified message of hope from Christians unequivocally condemning war and violence."

"We cannot be complicit in the bloodshed taking place in Ukraine and other parts of the world," said the patriarch.

Leo, 70 and in good health, has a crowded itinerary in Lebanon, visiting five cities and towns from Sunday to Tuesday, when he returns to Rome.

His schedule includes a prayer at the site of a 2020 chemical explosion at the Beirut port that killed 200 people and caused billions of dollars' worth of damage.

He will also lead an outdoor Mass on the Beirut waterfront and visit a psychiatric hospital, one of the few mental health facilities in Lebanon, where carers and residents are eagerly anticipating his arrival.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in the Lebanese capital to witness Pope Leo XIV's message of unity to a shattered city and a fractured state Tuesday.

Before Mass, the pontiff stopped by the site of a powerful chemical explosion in August 2020 that killed 218 people and injured 7,000 as it tore through entire neighborhoods. At least 300,000 people were displaced by the blast.

After holding a moment of silent prayer in front of a memorial to the victims, he made his way to Beirut’s historic waterfront in his popemobile, waving to the enthusiastic crowds, some of whom had waited hours to catch a glimpse of him. Many waved Lebanese flags and flowers as hymns rang out.

front of a crowd of around 150,000 people, he called on Lebanon to “cast off the armor of our ethnic and political divisions” and address years of conflict, political paralysis and economic misery.

“The Middle East needs new approaches in order to reject the mindset of revenge and violence, to overcome political, social and religious divisions, and to open new chapters in the name of reconciliation and peace,” he said in his homily, speaking in French from the stage next to the shimmering Mediterranean.

French is widely spoken in Lebanon alongside Arabic, a testament to the country’s religious and ethnic diversity, as well as its colonial past. The country only gained independence from France in 1943.

A few relatives of those who were killed during the devastating 2020 port blast waiting for Leo with photos of loved ones. Among them was Najwa Hayek, whose daughter, Lara Hayek, is still in a coma five years after the disaster.

Lara Hayek, who was 42 at the time, turns 48 later this month.

It’s so hard, I cannot believe she has gone like this,” her mother told NBC News on Monday.

Years of obstruction by top officials have stalled an investigation into the incident and quashed hopes for justice.

Hayek said she was not under the impression that Leo's trip to Lebanon would help to move forward the investigation and deliver some accountability, but she still believed it would bring some hope.

“I appreciate his visit so much. It’s a holy visit,” she said.

Tuesday's event ended the pontiff’s first international trip, which took him to Turkey and then Lebanon, both Muslim-majority countries that are home to Christian populations.

Throughout his trip, Leo's main message was a call for unity and interfaith dialogue in the region wracked by conflict and war.

Just a week before he landed in Beirut, an Israeli airstrike on the city killed Haytham Ali Tabatabai, a senior Hezbollah commander, along with four other people. Another 28 were injured.

Lebanon has also been rocked by the spillover of the war in Gaza. Until a fragile ceasefire was brokered around a year ago, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia Muslim militant group, was also battling Israeli forces across the country's southern border.

Beirut was also hit by numerous strikes, which Israel said were targeting Hezbollah leaders.

Addressing reporters at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport before he left, Leo called for attacks and hostilities to cease.

“Let no one think that armed conflict brings any benefit,” he said. “Weapons kill, but negotiation, mediation and dialogue build. Let us all choose peace.”