October 7, 2024
Italy, UK and France express solidarity on October 7 anniversary
The leaders of Italy, the UK and France have all expressed their solidarity with Israel, remembering the October 7 attacks.
“Let us not forget the inhumane aggression perpetrated a year ago by Hamas,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a speech at the Great Synagogue in central Rome.
“Remembering and strongly condemning what happened a year ago is not a mere ritual, but the prerequisite for any political action to restore peace in the Middle East,” she said.
“The reticence that is increasingly encountered in doing so betrays a latent and rampant antisemitism that must concern everyone,” she added.
“We reiterate Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself… in accordance with international humanitarian law,” Meloni said, saying Italy “cannot remain insensitive to the enormous toll of innocent civilian victims in Gaza.”
For his part, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday that Britain “will not falter in our pursuit of peace.”
In a statement, he paid tribute to the victims killed a year ago, saying: “We stand together to remember the lives so cruelly taken.”
Starmer added that Britain “must unequivocally stand with the Jewish community and unite as a country.”
He also repeated his calls for immediate cease-fires in Gaza and Lebanon “and for the removal of all restrictions on humanitarian aid into Gaza.”
French President Emmanuel Macron sent “fraternal thoughts” to the victims and their families, commemorating the anniversary with a post on the social media platform X.
“The pain remains, as vivid as it was a year ago. The pain of the Israeli people. Ours. The pain of wounded humanity. We do not forget the victims, the hostages, or the families with broken hearts from absence or waiting,” Macron wrote.
