STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Many people around the world feel a personal connection to Pope Francis, and that includes people in the Middle East. He traveled to Iraq. He traveled to Persian Gulf nations. And there's one place where the pope maintained a special connection even when he was deathly ill. NPR's producer in Gaza, Anas Baba, and Jane Arraf prepared this report.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
YUSUF ASAD: Yusuf.
POPE FRANCIS: (Speaking Italian).
ASAD: (Speaking Italian).
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: This is Pope Francis in a WhatsApp call in January to the Holy Family Church in Gaza City.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ASAD: (Speaking Italian).
FRANCIS: (Speaking Italian).
ARRAF: He's speaking to Father Yusuf Asad, a priest there. He asks what he ate. The call was during a lull in fighting between Israel and Hamas and things were better. Three months later, the ceasefire is broken and famine is setting in. But on that day, the congregation had chicken wings.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ASAD: (Speaking Italian).
FRANCIS: (Speaking Italian).
ASAD: (Speaking Italian).
ARRAF: Francis ends by saying they would talk tomorrow. Three hundred people have sheltered inside the last remaining Catholic church in Gaza since the war began. The pope, head of 1.4 billion Catholics around the world, called every evening to see how they were. The last time was Saturday, two days before he died, says George Antone, a Holy Family parish spokesman.
GEORGE ANTONE: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: Antone says Francis asked them to pray for him and to not be afraid, that he was with them.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: Outside the church, a group of children play soccer. Inside, Antone tells producer Anas Baba there's a huge feeling of loss.
ANTONE: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: "Today, we feel like we are truly orphans," Antone tells him. He says, no matter where he was or what he was doing, Francis would call every evening at 7.
ANTONE: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: "He would ask whether we had food, did we have clean water. Had anyone been injured? It was the questions a father would ask," Antone says. "We lost all of this." But that's not all they lost with the death of Pope Francis. The Gaza war has raged for a year and a half. At least 1,600 Israelis have been killed. The Israeli response has killed more than 51,000 Palestinians and destroyed the Palestinian enclave. The war rarely makes headlines anymore, but Pope Francis never let it drop.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DIEGO RAVELLI: (Speaking Italian).
ARRAF: The day before he died, he brought up Gaza in his Easter address at the Vatican, read by his deputy. He called for a lasting ceasefire.
ANTONE: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: "He was the only voice that did not go silent," says Antone in Gaza. There are fewer than 700 Christians left in Gaza, a region that was home to the beginning of Christianity.
ANTONE: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: Antone says Pope Francis was concerned with all Palestinians. Producer Baba asks him if there's anything he'd like to say in English. Antone says Pope Francis believed Gazans deserve dignity and independence.
ANTONE: I would call the whole world and every individual on this Earth to see Gaza by the eyes of Pope Francis.
ARRAF: A pope who forged a personal and lasting connection with a tiny community in the midst of war.
With producer Anas Baba in Gaza, I'm Jane Arraf, NPR News, Amman.
(SOUNDBITE OF SOPHIE HUTCHINGS' "BY NIGHT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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