Following a meeting with Pope Francis, Palestinians with family in Gaza and in the West Bank tell a press conference that they invited the head of the Catholic Church to visit Gaza "because we believe he can stop the war." "We have urged Pope Francis... based on our deep conviction that he's capable of stopping this war," Yousef Lalkhoury tells the conference. Pope Francis had earlier met separately with Israeli relatives of Hamas hostages and Palestinians with family in Gaza, while warning the ongoing conflict could result in "a mountain of dead". Hamas gunmen carried out on October 7 a cross-border attack, the worst in Israel's history, that left around 1,200 people dead, most of them civilians, according to the Israeli government. Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups also took an estimated 240 Israelis and foreigners hostage, among them elderly people and young children. In retaliation, Israel launched a major bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza, which the Hamas government said has killed 14,100 people, mostly civilians and thousands of them children. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES