Pope Francis is scheduled to meet Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing a Vatican announcement.
Abbas will be in Italy this week and is also expected to meet with Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The Vatican confirmed the meeting with Abbas in a brief statement on Tuesday but did not provide additional details about the agenda.
The meeting between the pope and Abbas comes as the pope continues to express increasingly pointed criticism of Israel's military actions in Gaza.
In November of last year, Jewish groups criticized Pope Francis after he appeared to accuse both Israel and Hamas of “terrorism” in the war that started after Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel on October 7.
“This is what wars do,” the pope said at his general audience in St. Peter’s Square. “But here we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism.”
Rabbi David Lau, then the Chief Rabbi of Israel, later wrote a letter to Pope Francis in which he called on the Pontiff to retract his comments.
In September, the pope decried the deaths of children in Israeli military strikes in Gaza while expressing doubt that Israel and Hamas are seeking an end to the war between them.
He also said that "sometimes I think it's a war that is too much, too much".
More recently, remarks attributed to Francis in a newly released book suggested that the global community should examine whether Israel's ongoing campaign in Gaza could be classified as a genocide.
After being criticized for those remarks, the pope claimed that his words had been misunderstood and were taken out of context.
Pope Francis and Abbas have met on several occasions and last spoke in November 2023.
The Vatican recognized “Palestine” as a state in 2013. Four years later, in 2017, the PA opened an “embassy” in the Vatican.
During a 2015 meeting with Abbas, the pope referred to Abbas as "an angel of peace", causing outrage on social media.
The Vatican later explained that the reference was mistranslated, and in fact was meant as encouragement for Abbas to pursue peace with Israel.