Jewish groups have criticised Pope Francis and demanded clarifications over his comments that they saw as accusing both Hamas and Israel of “terrorism”, Reuters reports.

In a toughly worded statement, the Council of the Assembly of Italian Rabbis (ARI) accused the pope of “publicly accusing both sides of terrorism”.

It went on to accuse unnamed “Church leaders” of not condemning the Hamas attack and of “putting the aggressor and the attacked on the same plane in the name of a supposed impartiality”.

In a posting on Wednesday evening on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) thanked the pope for meeting the families of hostages and for his repeated calls to free those being held.

But the AJC added: “Later in the day, he described the Israel-Hamas war as ‘beyond war’ as ‘terrorism.’ Hamas’ butchering and kidnapping of civilians is terrorism. Israel’s self-defence is not. Vatican, please clarify”.

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