Pope Benedict and Catholic bishops around the world have expressed deep concern that fighting in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah militias could expand into a wider regional conflict. And they have called for an immediate ceasefire and the beginning of peace talks.

The Pope last Sunday said "neither terrorist acts nor the retaliation" could be justified, repeating the words pronounced by his Secretary of State two days earlier. The Pope spoke after the weekly Angelus from his vacation chalet in the Italian Alps and expressed "serious worries" over an "extension of the bellicose actions" and "the numerous victims among the civilian population". He invited "local Churches" around the world to offer special prayers for peace in the Holy Land and the entire Middle East. He also remembered the people of the third-largest Israeli city of Haifa, home of some 20,000 Christians and about a dozen Carmelite monks of Our Lady of Mt Carmel.

Two days later, on returning to his retreat after a walk in the mountains, the Pope said he agreed entirely with the communiqué issued by the G8 leaders at the summit in St Petersburg that ended on Monday. The G8 blamed the Hezbollah and Hamas militants for the escalation in fighting, and urged Israel to exercise restraint. "I fully agree with the G8 communiqué," the Pope said. "It seems to me that this indicates the road [to take]. I have nothing else to add except to add the importance of prayer so that God may help us."

Israel launched its assault on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon on 12 July after Hezbollah fighters captured two of its soldiers. About 270 Lebanese people had been killed by Wednesday this week, most of them civilians. Twenty-five Israelis had died - 13 civilians and 12 members of the military. Hezbollah rocket attacks have hit the northern city of Haifa, as well as Safed, Acre, Kiryat Shemona, and the Gush Halav region near Safed. Hotels in northern Israel, including the Church of Scotland's Scots Hotel in Tiberias, were evacuated.

"UN Reduced to Inaction as Lebanon Burns", said the headline on the cover of L'Osservatore Romano on Sunday, the same day the Pope made his appeal. The Vatican paper said the "principal decision-making organ of the international community" was "once again a spectator in the face of the death of law, violated by both sides". Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State, said on 14 July that the Holy See deplored Israel's attack on Lebanon, "a free and sovereign nation".

Those comments were echoed by church leaders in the Middle East, some of whom said they could understand the Jewish state's reaction, but judged it as beyond proportion. "[The Israelis] have to do something in response," said Fr Michael McGarry, rector of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem. But, in an interview with Catholic News Service, he said: "Killing civilians is not appropriate."

The head of the 300 Franciscans who oversee most of the Christian holy sites in the region, Fr Pierbattista Pizzaballa OFM, appealed to the United States and the European Union to intervene before the violence spun out of control.