Mohammed Yassin/Reuters via CNN Newsource

Beirut (CNN) — Pope Leo XIV touched down in Lebanon’s capital Beirut on Sunday with the hope of being a “messenger of peace” as he began a three-day visit to the nation at the heart of a Middle East battered by recent conflicts, just days after an Israeli strike on southern Beirut.

Standing below a message that read “Blessed Are The Peacemakers” at the presidential palace in Baabda, Leo urged people to remain in Lebanon amid an “exodus of young people and families seeking a future elsewhere” due to “uncertainty, violence, poverty and many other threats.”

“We must not forget that remaining in our homeland and working day by day to develop a civilization of love and peace remains something very valuable,” he said in his address to the country’s

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