LEICESTER, United Kingdom – Just days after the former intelligence chief of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Aharon Haliva, was reported as saying 50 Palestinians should die for every Israeli killed in the Oct. 7, 2025, attack on Israel by Hamas, the Catholic Church in Ireland has called for a Day of Prayer and Reflection for Gaza on Aug. 24.

“The Catholic Bishops of Ireland dedicated the month of June to prayer for, and solidarity with, the suffering people of Gaza,” explained Archbishop Eamon Martin, the Archbishop of Armagh in Northern Ireland and Primate of All Ireland.

“Heartbreakingly, since then, the situation has deteriorated further.  Innocent lives continue to be lost, many of them children and families while hunger, violence and devastation tighten their grip on a people caught in the crossfire,” he said.

Tapes of the speeches of Haliva were quoted in an article in The Times of Israel, and he was quoted as saying, “The fact that there are already 50,000 dead in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations.”

“For everything that happened on October 7, for every person who was killed on October 7, 50 Palestinians must die,” said the former leader, who resigned after the 2023 Hamas attack that killed nearly 2,000 Israelis. So far, Israel’s war in Gaza has killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians.

“I’m not speaking out of revenge, I’m speaking out of a message to future generations. There’s nothing to be done,” Haliva said in his talk, the date of which was not reported.

“They need a Nakba every now and then to feel the price. There’s no choice, in this disturbed neighborhood,” he said. The Nakba refers to the aftereffects of the 1948 Israeli War for Independence, during which many ethnic Arabs fled what is now Israel.

In his Aug. 19 statement, Martin said Ireland’s bishops have condemned in the strongest terms “the genocidal acts being carried out with the sanction of the Israeli government,” actions he said have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians.

He said Israel’s attacks in Gaza are “disproportionate violence” and noted an Irish bishops’ statement described as “unconscionable… and immoral for world leaders to stand by inactively.”

“The ongoing suffering of hostages held by Hamas and the cruel withholding of their remains from their families is also acknowledged and unequivocally condemned.  In the face of such darkness, this call to prayer is a call to hope,” the archbishop said.

His remarks were similar to those made by Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster in England earlier this month.

“I weep for the people of Gaza as they face not just a continuation of their immense suffering but an escalation in their hardship and desperation,” he said on Aug. 9.

“To increase the destruction of Gaza City and then the rest of its territory, in order to defeat a terrorist organization and movement, is a development that is rightly being condemned around the world,” the cardinal said.

“There must be a better way, one that does not heap yet further suffering and misery on so many people who are not combatants but defenseless in face of the perpetrators of violence in their midst. Already too much innocent blood has been shed; too many lives destroyed; too much hunger and starvation,” Nichols continued.

“This war must be ended not increased,” he said.

The cardinal also condemned the attack on the Parish of the Holy Family, Gaza’s only Catholic church, on July 17.

He said the parish is a haven of compassion and prayer, and “must evoke from us all our practical help and our prayers.”

“This center of peaceful resilience and profound solidarity, in the midst of such devastation and inhumanity, must be protected and preserved as one sign of hope for the future,” he said.

In his statement released on Aug. 19, Martin called on Catholics to pray for the people of Gaza and to call on their political representatives to advocate for justice and humanitarian aid.

“This is a moment for our nation to radiate the light of Christ into the darkness, a light of peace, of justice and of hope for our world.  Let us stand together, as one body in Christ, for the people of Gaza and for all who long for a just and lasting peace in the Holy Land.”

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