ROME – After meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican earlier this week, former Israeli and Palestinian ministers said they presented him with a joint peace plan that involves an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as a step towards an eventual two-state solution.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Kidwa met with the pope at the Vatican Thursday, Oct. 17, to discuss the ongoing war in Gaza and a potential path to peace.

Olmert served as Prime Minister from 2006-2009, and prior to that was cabinet minister and mayor of Jerusalem. He led Israel when a ceasefire to end the Lebanon war was signed in 2006, and is considered one of the main protagonists in the ongoing attempt to create two separate states with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

For his part, Al-Kidwa served as Foreign Minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2005 to 2006.

They were joined during Thursday’s meeting by Gershon Baskin, an Israeli columnist and social and political activist who has researched the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and the tumultuous peace process, at length.

Also present was Samer Sinijlawi, a native of Jerusalem who has spent the past 30 years as a political activist seeking to build bridges between Israel and Palestine.

Speaking to Vatican News, the Vatican’s official state-run information platform, Olmert said the conversation with Pope Francis was “an important and emotional meeting.”

“The Holy Father showed extraordinary interest in the peace efforts in the Middle East,” he said, saying the pope spent more than half an hour with them, “explaining that he follows every development of the conflict daily, and that every day he connects with the Christians of Gaza.”

Calling the meeting “an honor,” Olmert said Francis was attentive to the message they wanted to send and their plan for peace.

This message, he said, was that “the war in Gaza has to be stopped, that the hostages have to be returned to their families, that Israel has to pull out completely from Gaza, and that Israel and the Palestinians must embark immediately on negotiations for comprehensive peace on the two-state solution.”

Olmert suggested that a special agreement for the status of the Old City of Jerusalem be reached in which the city is monitored by a trust of five nations, including Palestine and Israel, which would “keep it free for all believers, Christians, Jews, and Muslims, to practice their faith in the city of Jerusalem.”

Al-Kidwa, who is the nephew of famed Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat and is known for his efforts in favor of peace, told Vatican Media, “We presented the Holy Father with our peace proposal for Gaza.”

He confirmed that this plan includes “an immediate ceasefire, the release of the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas, along with the simultaneous release of an agreed number of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, and the resumption of negotiations for the creation of two separate states at peace with each other.”

“For us, it was important as a team and of course, for our mission to end the war and to achieve peace between the two peoples in the form of two states living side by side on the basis of 1967 borders, with a swap that is agreed upon,” he said.

Al-Kidwa said he agrees with Olmert’s proposal for Israel to annex just a small portion of the West Bank, and called for “ending the war immediately in the Gaza Strip.”

He said the delegation also touched on the “important issue for the whole of humanity” regarding the status of Jerusalem and how it would be governed.

“We took the step of presenting His Holiness with the proposal that we made together in this regard, and I believe that he will bless the plan, and he will bless our actions and that definitely is going to make a huge difference,” he said.

The war in Gaza erupted after an Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas militants that claimed some 1,200 lives and during which some 250 people were taken hostage, many of whom have since been released or have died, however, around 93 remain unaccounted for.

A military response by Israel led to a full-scale war in Gaza that has so far left over 40,000 people dead, and which has expanded to a broader regional conflict involving Iran and Lebanon.

Pope Francis has consistently called for peace, and his top aides have advocated for a two-state solution to the conflict.

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