Pope issues new anti-war plea as he evokes Nazi Holocaust

Pope Francis has issued a new plea against all wars as he evoked the horror of the mass killing of Jews and other victims of the Nazis ahead of Saturday's Holocaust Memorial Day.

"The memory and condemnation of that horrible extermination of millions of people...may help everybody to not forget that the logic of hatred and violence can never be justified," he said during his Wednesday weekly audience.

"Let us not get tired of praying for peace, for conflicts to end, for weapons to stop, for relief for exhausted populations," Francis added.

The leader of the world's more than 1.35 billion Roman Catholics mentioned the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the bombing of civilians in "martyred Ukraine".

He repeated his assertion that "war is always a defeat" in which "the only winners, so to speak, are weapons manufacturers".