Names of children killed in Gaza war read out in Italy vigil

By CathNews New Zealand

August 22nd, 2025

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi in 2023. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

The head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference has helped read out the names of every child killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict since October 2023. Source: National Catholic Reporter.

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi led a prayer vigil on August 14, taking turns with dozens of other members of his diocese reading the names and ages of the 16 Israeli children who died during the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas and the 12,211 names of the Palestinian children who have died following Israel’s occupation of Gaza up until July 25, 2025.

The names of the Israeli children were taken from Israeli government data, while the names of the Palestinian children were compiled by the Gaza Ministry of Health. The document was 469 pages long, which took roughly seven hours to read, starting in the afternoon and going until late in the evening.

“We pronounce their names one by one,” Cardinal Zuppi said at the start of the vigil.

“They ask us all to commit ourselves to finding or pursuing the path to peace with greater intelligence and passion, starting with a ceasefire and offering the conditions for doing so, from the release of hostages to not taking an entire people hostage.”

The prayer vigil took place in the park of Monte Sole di Marzabotto, not far from Cardinal Zuppi’s diocese in Bologna. The location was highly symbolic, since the prayer occurred in the ruins of the Church of Casaglia, burned by Nazis, who between September 29 and October 5, 1944, destroyed the area and killed almost 800 people, including children.

“This is to remember, to pay attention, from this place which is a place of suffering and that has since always been a place to remember all victims,” Cardinal Zuppi said.

The initiative was organised by the monastic community of the Small Family of the Annunciation, which cares for the ruins of the Nazi attack and preserves its memory. The School of Peace at Monte Sole is an institution committed to promoting peace and tolerance.

“It is an insistent prayer so that the war may cease, so that the weapons may fall silent, so that humanity may prevail,” Cardinal Zuppi said.

FULL STORY

Cardinal Zuppi leads seven-hour prayer, naming every child killed in Holy Land war (By Claire Giangravé/NCR)

Hamas says it has accepted a new Arab proposal in Gaza ceasefire talks (Stuff)