Pope Francis said on Wednesday that a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine was necessary to end wars like the current one and called for special status for Jerusalem, Reuters reported.

In an interview with Italian state broadcaster RAI’s TG1 news channel, Pope Francis also expressed hope that a regional escalation could be avoided in the conflict that began when Hamas militants entered Israel, killing an estimated 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, and taking about 230 hostages.

“(These are) two nations that should live together. With this wise decision, two states. Agreements in Oslo, two clearly defined states and Jerusalem with a special status,” Francis said in an interview with the Italian RAI television station.

In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords, which established limited Palestinian autonomy.

US President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat attended the 2000 Camp David summit but failed to reach a final peace agreement.

Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in 1967, and in 1980 declared the entire city “its sole and eternal capital.” Palestinians consider the eastern part of the city as the capital of a possible future state.

Israel has consistently rejected suggestions that the city, which is holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews, could have any special or international status.

“The war in the Holy Land scares me,” Francis said. “How will these people finish this story?”.

According to him, escalation “would mean the end of many things and many lives.”

Pope Francis, who has called for humanitarian corridors to help Gazans and a cease-fire, said he speaks by phone every day with priests and nuns who run a parish in Gaza, home to about 560 people, mostly Christians, but also some Muslims.

“So far, thank God, the Israeli forces respect this parish,” he said.

He also expressed concern about the rise of anti-Semitism, adding that much of it “still remains hidden”.

According to him, the war between Israel and Hamas should not make people forget other conflicts, in particular in Ukraine, Syria, Yemen and Myanmar.