Hamas on Monday mourned the late Archbishop Hilarion Capucci, 94, who passed away in his exile in Rome yesterday.

“We mourn the death of a great Arab revolutionary who dedicated most of his life to defending the Palestinian people and their just cause,” Hamas said in a press statement.

“Archbishop Capucci’s life was a demonstration of the oneness of Arab peoples and their shared pains and hopes,” the statement added, noting that archbishop Capucci had paid a price for his brave positions and spent many years in Israeli prisons as a result.

The late archbishop Hilarion Capucci was born in Aleppo in 1922 and became the bishop of the Greek Catholic Church in Jerusalem in 1965.

The Israeli forces arrested Capucci in 1974 and charged him with supporting the Palestinian resistance. He was sentenced to 12 years in Israeli prisons, but he was released 4 years later and exiled to Vatican.