Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni this Saturday in Tel Aviv.
At the beginning of the meeting, which was shown on the Israeli PM's official social media account, Netanyahu thanked Meloni for the wartime visit and asserted that the conflict between Hamas and Israel is a battle between barbarism and civilization, "and we will win."
Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Italian Prime Minister Meloni:
"We have to defeat this barbarism. This is a battle between the forces of civilization and really, monstrous barbarians who murdered, mutilated, raped, beheaded, burned innocent people, babies, grandmothers. pic.twitter.com/aRFcZddTvO
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) October 21, 2023
"Thank you for coming here and for standing with Israel. We always say there's one thing better than standing with Israel. It's standing in Israel. We welcome you for coming here. This is our darkest hour," Netanyahu began.
"We have to defeat this barbarism," the prime minister continued. "This is a battle between the forces of civilization and really, monstrous barbarians who murdered, mutilated, raped, beheaded, burned innocent people, babies, grandmothers."
"This is a test, a test of civilization and we will win. And we expect all the countries that lined up to fight ISIS, to line up and fight Hamas, because Hamas is the new ISIS," Netanyahu said.
For her part, Meloni stressed that the images from last October 7 prove that Israel is surrounded by enemies who want to destroy it. For this reason, the prime minister once again showed her support for Israel, stating that it has the right to defend itself against those who want to eliminate it.
"Prime Minister, I'm happy to be here. I felt it was very important to come personally to bring the solidarity of the Italian government and the Italian people, and to tell you that we saw images that were incredible about what happened two weeks ago. That showed something more than simply, well, a war. They showed somebody who wants to cancel Jewish people from this region. And it is up to antisemitism. That is something we have to fight yesterday and today," Meloni said.
"We defend the right of Israel existing, of defending itself, security for its people. And we absolutely understand that terrorism has to be fought. We believe and we think that you are able to do that in the best way, for we are different from those terrorists," added the Italian leader.
