On the 3rd February, 2025, the International Summit on Children’s Rights was held in the Vatican: chaired by Pope Francis, it was attended by institutional representatives, political leaders and humanitarian organizations from all over the world, with the aim of finding programmatic guidelines for urgent and synergistic action to protect children around the world.
Amongst the participants was Br. Ibrahim Faltas, OFM, Vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land, who said in an interview with the SIR agency: “Peace is the fundamental right of children. The war that began sixteen months ago [in Israel and Palestine] has brought death and destruction, multiplied the suffering of Palestinian children and Israeli children. In Gaza, children have suffered from hunger, thirst, cold, heat, lack of care and education,” Br. Ibrahim testified, “essential needs and rights have been lacking. The respite and the much desired peace may relieve the physical and material needs of the children, but it will be difficult to erase the visible and invisible traumas they have left on the children's bodies and minds. In these sixteen months of war, many children have been born, but many have died, many have not had the opportunity to save themselves.”
The religious then underlined the school emergency in the Gaza Strip, as many schools were destroyed during the conflict: “Thirty-nine thousand children last year were unable to take their high school exams, and it will be the same for many of them again this year. They do not see their future and are losing hope for the future,” concluded the Vicar.
Pope Francis, who strongly wanted this international meeting “to rescue and protect children, whose rights are trampled on and ignored every day”, in his final thanks quoted a speech by Br. Ibrahim: “Father Faltas said a word, a phrase that I like so much: 'Children are watching us’. It was also the title of a famous film. Children look at us: they look at us to see how we go forward in life,” the Holy Father concluded.
Also present at the meeting was the Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, who announced that 30 Palestinian children with cancer reported by Card. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM and the Pope John XXIII Centre.
Sources: www.agensir.it and www.vaticannews.va
Photo: OFM Archive
