VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza in an Easter Sunday message read aloud by an aide as the pontiff, still recovering from pneumonia, looked on during a brief appearance on the main balcony of St Peter’s Basilica. The 88-year-old pope, limiting his workload on doctors’ orders, did not preside over the Vatican’s Mass for Easter but appeared at the end of the event for a twice-yearly blessing and message known as the “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world).

In the Easter message, the pontiff said the situation in Gaza was “dramatic and deplorable”. The pope also called on Palestinian group Hamas to release its remaining hostages and condemned what he said was a “worrisome” trend of “antisemitism” in the world. “I express my closeness to the sufferings ... of all the (Zionist) people and the Palestinian people,” said the message. “I appeal to the warring parties: Call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace,” it said.

Gaza’s civil defense agency reported Zionist air strikes since dawn on Sunday killed at least 25 people across the Gaza Strip, including women and children. In a separate statement later,

the agency reported that five people were killed in a Zionist drone strike on a group of civilians in eastern Rafah. The overall death toll in the Gaza war has reached 51,201, the majority of them civilians.

Before a five-week hospital stay for pneumonia, Francis had been ramping up criticism of the Zionist entity’s military campaign in Gaza, calling the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave “very serious and shameful” in January.

Earlier on Sunday, Francis held a meeting at the Vatican with US Vice President JD Vance, who has been visiting Italy over the weekend. The Vatican said the meeting with Vance was brief, “lasting a few minutes”, in order to exchange Easter greetings. Vance’s office issued a brief statement confirming the meeting, but offered no further details.

The vice president, who has been visiting Italy with his family this weekend, met senior Vatican officials for more formal talks on Saturday. The pope did not take part in those discussions. The pope and Vatican officials have criticized several of the policies of President Donald Trump’s administration, including his plans to deport millions of migrants from the US and his widespread cuts to foreign aid and domestic welfare programs.

Francis has called the immigration crackdown a “disgrace”. Vance, who became Catholic in 2019, has cited medieval-era Catholic teaching to justify the policy. The pope rebutted the theological concept Vance used to defend the crackdown in an unusual open letter to the US Catholic bishops about the Trump administration in February, and called Trump’s plan a “major crisis” for the United States.

Pope Francis later entered St Peter’s Square on Sunday in an open-air popemobile for the first time since surviving double pneumonia, greeting tens of thousands of Catholics after the Vatican’s celebration of Easter Mass. The pope sat in a raised chair in the back of the white vehicle, as people lined the aisles inside the square, many holding aloft national flags and shouting “viva il papa!” (long live the pope!). The popemobile briefly stopped at several points around the square, decorated with colorful flowers for Easter, as papal aides brought forward babies from the crowd for Francis to bless. The pope gestured with his hands, but only raised them slightly. – Agencies