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Israel protested to the Vatican after the second-in-command after Pope Francis described what was happening in Gaza as a “massacre.”

The Israeli embassy to the Vatican said in a statement: “It is an unfortunate statement. Judging the legality of a war without taking into account all the circumstances and information inevitably leads to wrong conclusions.”

The Israeli embassy insisted that Hamas bears responsibility for the death and destruction in the Gaza Strip.

A day before the Israeli embassy’s statement, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State and second-in-command to Pope Francis in the papal hierarchy, repeated his request that “Israel’s right to defend itself, which it relied on to justify the current military operation, be proportionate.”

He added, "Certainly, with 30,000 people killed, it is not like that."

"I think we are all angry about what is happening, angry because of this massacre, but we must have the courage to continue and not lose hope," Parolin said, adding that "we must find other ways to solve the Gaza problem and the Palestine problem."

Pope Francis, who has repeatedly called for peace in the Middle East and elsewhere, has faced previous criticism from Jewish groups over the Vatican's positions toward the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Reuters