Pope Francis expressed his closeness Sunday to relatives of six Israeli hostages whose bodies were recovered from Gaza earlier this month, saying he had met the mother of one of them.

The six were among about 251 hostages taken from southern Israel during Hamas's unprecedented Oct. 7 attack, which triggered the ongoing war.

Of them, 97 hostages are still held in the Gaza Strip, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

"I think of the Middle East. So many innocent victims. I think of the mothers who have lost sons to war. How many young lives cut short," Francis said at the end of the Angelus prayer.

"I think of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, found dead in early September with five other hostages in Gaza.

"In November last year, I met his mother, Rachel, whose humanity struck me. I accompany her at this time. I pray for the victims and continue to be close to all the families of the hostages," he added.

Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American national, was 23 when he was abducted from a music festival.

He sent his mother Rachel a text message saying "I love you" followed by another saying "I'm sorry."

A Hamas video from the day showed him being loaded onto a pick-up truck with part of his left arm missing. It had been blown off in the attack.

"Let the conflict in Palestine and Israel cease. Let the violence cease. Let the hatred cease. Let the hostages be released. Let negotiations continue. And may solutions for peace be found," Francis said.

Pope Francis decries deaths of Gaza's children in Israeli bombings

Pope Francis on Friday decried the deaths of Palestinian children in Israeli military strikes in Gaza, calling bombings of schools, on the "presumption" of striking Hamas militants, "ugly."

On the flight back to Rome from Singapore, the pontiff expressed doubt that either Israel or Hamas, now at war for eleven months, were seeking to end the conflict. "I am sorry to have to say this," the pope said. "But I do not think that they are taking steps to make peace."

Francis was speaking in a press conference with journalists after a demanding 12-day tour across Southeast Asia and Oceania. He said he speaks on the phone with members of a Catholic parish in Gaza "every day" and "they tell me ugly things, difficult things."

"Please, when you see the bodies of killed children, when you see that, under the presumption that some guerrillas are there, a school is bombed, this is ugly," the 87-year-old pontiff said. "It is ugly."

The pope, who has supported calls for a cease-fire in the conflict and for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, said "sometimes I think it's a war that is too much, too much."

Hamas's Oct. 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel's offensive has killed at least 40,738 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry. The U.N. rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

The fighting has devastated Gaza, repeatedly displaced most of its 2.4 million people and triggered a humanitarian crisis.