At the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, rituals of faith unfold: worshippers kneel in prayer, visitors raise their palms skyward or fervently murmur invocations as they press their faces against an ornate structure enclosing where they believe the granddaughter of Prophet Muhammad is entombed.

But it's more than just religious devotion that the golden-domed shrine became known for during Syria's prolonged civil war.

Pope Leo XIV called Wednesday for humanitarian aid to reach the Gaza Strip and for an end to the "heartbreaking" toll on its people, as he presided over his first general audience in St. Peter's Square.

The Vatican said that around 40,000 people were on hand for the audience, which came just days after an estimated 200,000 people attended the inaugural Mass on Sunday for history's first American pope.

Two high-profile Catholics, Pope Leo XIV and U.S. Vice President JD Vance, met Monday ahead of a flurry of U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to make progress on a ceasefire in Russia's war in Ukraine.

Vance's motorcade was seen entering Vatican City just after 7:30 a.m. Vance, a Catholic convert, had led the U.S. delegation to the formal Mass opening the pontificate of the first American pope.

Sepideh Farsi is still in shock after an Israeli air strike in Gaza killed her documentary's main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, weeks before its Cannes premiere Thursday.

"Why would you kill someone and decimate an entire family just because she was taking photos?" she told AFP before the screening.

The medieval monastery clings almost impossibly to sheer cliffs high above the shimmering turquoise of the Aegean Sea. Rising from the rugged granite rock, its walls enclose a diverse Christian Orthodox community.

The Monastery of Simonos Petra, also known as Simonopetra — or Simon's Rock — transcends country-based branches of the Christian faith, embracing monks from across the world, including converts from nations where Orthodox Christianity is not the prevailing religion.

The bishop sat quietly near the front row, hands folded, listening as Indigenous leaders and church workers spoke about the threats to Peru's northern forests, a part of the Amazon rain forest. It was 2016, a year after Laudato Si, Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment.

When he was up to speak, the bishop didn't preach though he was in his city of Chiclayo as host of a regional gathering. Instead, he reflected on things he had seen.

The Cannes film festival kicked off Tuesday with a highly political ceremony that included a tribute to a slain Palestinian photojournalist from Juliette Binoche and a fresh attack on US President Donald Trump from Robert De Niro.

Pope Leo XIV vowed to take "every effort" Wednesday to work for peace in the Middle East and Ukraine and to actively promote the spirituality and traditions of the eastern rite churches, those Catholic communities with origins in the Mideast and eastern Europe that have been decimated by years of conflict and persecution.

"The church needs you!" Leo told a Holy Year audience of eastern rite pilgrims.

Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday offered to mediate between leaders of countries at war, saying that he himself "will make every effort so that this peace may prevail".

"The Holy See is always ready to help bring enemies together, face to face, to talk to one another, so that peoples everywhere may once more find hope and recover the dignity they deserve, the dignity of peace. The peoples of our world desire peace, and to their leaders I appeal with all my heart: Let us meet, let us talk, let us negotiate!" he told a meeting of Eastern Catholic Churches.

Pope Leo XIV celebrated his first Mass on Friday, a day after his historic election as the first North American pope in the Catholic Church's 2,000-year history while congratulations poured in from world leaders and statesmen at the start of his papacy.

On Thursday, Cardinal Robert Prevost emerged onto the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, following the conclave and the appearance of white smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling that a new pontiff has been chosen. His election overcame the traditional prohibition against a pope from the United States.