Cardinal Zuppi reads names of children killed in Gaza for 7 hours

The head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, has helped read out the names of every child killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict since October 2023, CathNews.com writes.

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi led a prayer vigil on Aug. 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 Sept. 29 and Oct. 5, 1944, destroyed the area and killed almost 800 people, including children.