VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, led a prayer vigil on Thursday (Aug. 14), on the eve of the Feast of the Assumption, where he read the name of every child who has died in the conflict between Israel and Hamas since the start of the war in the Holy Land two years ago.
“We pronounce their names one by one,” 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.”
Zuppi took turns with dozens of other members of his diocese reading the names and ages of the 16 Israeli children who died during the Oct. 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, w …
