(Adnkronos) – Despite Israel’s devastating 20-month-old military offensive in Gaza and an aid blockade that threatens to starve the Palestinian enclave, Italy remains a friend of the Jewish State and its people, defence minister Guido Crosetto said on Wednesday.
“Like the prime minister (Giorgia Meloni), foreign minister Antonio Tajani, the entire cabinet and president Sergio Mattarella, I condemn (Israeli premier Benjamin) Netanyahu,” Crosetto told SkyTg24 Live In.
Asked if he backed a suspension of the European Union’s political and economic pact with Israel, however, Crosetto said this would penalise Israel for the missteps of the far-right Netanyahu government.
“I don’t understand what it has to do with making a people or a nation pay for the dramatic and unjustifiable mistakes of the Netanyahu government,” Crosetto said.
“We remain friends of the people and the state of Israel,” Crosetto underlined.
After an EU foreign ministers meeting on 20 May, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said it would review its 25-year-old association agreement with Israel due to the “catastrophic” situation in Gaza with a lack of humanitarian aid reaching the enclave as the Israeli government launched a new military offensive.
“A strong majority of member states is in favour of revising Article 2 of our association agreement (which stipulates that relations between Brussels and Tel Aviv must be based on respect for human rights),” Kallas stated.
The United Nations Security Council is due to vote Wednesday on a demand for a ceasefire between Israel and Islamist Palestinian group Hamas and on humanitarian access across Gaza, where malnutrition is widespread and aid has only trickled in since Israel lifted an 11-week blockade in late May.
