Moscow bears responsibility for the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni claimed in an interview with il Giornale newspaper published on Saturday. It was Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine that supposedly encouraged Hamas to launch a massive attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, she stated.
The Italian leader maintained that a military operation launched by a permanent UN Security Council member against its neighbor violated international law and shook the entire global security system. She said such a move would have inevitably “have [a] cascading effect on the other regions… of the world, from the Middle East to [the] Balkans, to Africa.”
“If Russia had not invaded Ukraine, in all likelihood, Hamas would not have launched such an attack against Israel,” she claimed.