President Reuven Rivlin condemned Hamas on an official visit to the Vatican and Rome, Thursday.
In a private meeting with Pope Francis at the Apostolic Palace, Rivlin said, "Hamas has repeatedly led to a severe escalation time and again, while callously exploiting the plight of the residents of the Gaza Strip."
He said, "Israel does not want an escalation or to hurt innocent civilians, but will not stand by while Hamas undermines stability and our civilians are harmed."
Rivlin was referring to the firing of over 460 rockets and mortar shells on Israel's south starting from Monday afternoon and continuing overnight to Tuesday morning, killing one person and wounding 55 in the worst flare-up in the area since 2014.
In response, the Israeli Air Force struck 160 Hamas assets and over a dozen Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza, including Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV headquarters in Gaza City, and the group's intelligence headquarters and internal security building, as well as several weapon arsenals.
Rivlin said that before any agreement could be reached with the terrorist organization, Hamas must first return the two Israeli civilians it is holding captive and the bodies of two IDF soldiers killed in 2014's Operation Protective Edge.
A U.N.- and Egyptian-brokered cease-fire went into effect late Tuesday afternoon.
According to a press statement, Rivlin also praised Francis' "absolute condemnation of acts of anti-Semitism and your definition of such acts as anti-Christian," which the president called "a significant step in the ongoing fight to stamp it out."
In their meeting, Rivlin also expressed his gratitude for the friendly relations between Israel and the Catholic Church to the pope.
In a statement, the Holy See said Rivlin and Francis discussed the creation of conducive conditions for resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and the "Jerusalem question, in its religious and human dimension for Jews, Christians and Muslims, as well as the importance of safeguarding its identity and vocation as [the] City of Peace."
This was Rivlin's second meeting with the pope. Their first was held in 2015.
Rivlin and his wife, Nechama, were met with a reception at Vatican City, where they reviewed an honor guard of the Holy See's small force, the Pontifical Swiss Guard.
