VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo spoke out against the forced displacement of Gaza civilians on Sunday as Israel intensified its military demolition campaign in the Palestinian enclave's main city.
"Together with the pastors of the churches in the Holy Land, I repeat that there is no future based on violence, forced exile, and revenge," the Pope said during his weekly Angelus prayer.
The Holy Land encompasses parts of modern-day Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, Jordan, and Egypt, which are sacred to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Leo's role in advocating for peace in Gaza has become starker since Israel struck the territory's only Catholic church in July.
"The people need peace. Those who truly love them work for peace," the first pope from the US added.
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes in Gaza City and at a refugee camp killed more than 40 people, including 19 women and children.
Health officials at Shifa Hospital, where most of the bodies were brought, said the dead included 14 people killed in a strike late on Saturday, which hit a residential block in the southern side of the city. 
Health staff said a nurse who worked at the hospital was among the dead, along with his wife and three children.
Another strike that targeted a group of people in front of a clinic in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least eight Palestinians, according to the Al-Awda Hospital. 
The dead include four children and two women, the hospital said. Another 22 people were wounded, it said.