“Have to defeat this barbarism”: Says Israel PM on his meet with Italian counterpart and Cypriot President

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides on Saturday amid the crisis in Gaza and the impending ground invasion against the terrorist organization Hamas. “We have to defeat this barbarism,” Israel PM urged the Italian Prime Minister, adding that the conflict is between civilization’s forces and “really monstrous barbarians who murdered, mutilated, raped, beheaded, and burned innocent people, babies, and 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,” the Israeli PM’s office posted from its handle on social media platform X.

Meloni gave Netanyahu reassurance

“We defend the rights of Israel of defending itself… for its people. We absolutely understand that terrorism has to be fought, and we believe that you are able to do that in the best way, and we are different from those terrorists,” the Italian PM said.

Also Read: Aid-Carrying Trucks Start Entering Into Gaza Via Rafah Border

Israel PM: “It is a battle of civilization against barbarism”

Netanyahu then met Cypriot President Christodoulides, stressing that it was a “battle of civilization against barbarism”.

“What we saw in Gaza, along with our communities, is beyond description. It is savagery that is the worst that we’ve seen against Jewish people since the Holocaust. They captivated people, raped women,” he said at a joint press briefing with the Cypriot President. “Our battle against Hamas is the battle of civilization against barbarism,” Netanyahu added.

Invoking a previous UN speech in which he compared Hamas to ISIS, the Israeli PM’s office published on X, “Hamas, as I said in the UN ten years ago, almost a decade ago, Hamas is ISIS. People didn’t believe me. Now they know it’s actually worse than ISIS, as President Biden said, and Chancellor Scholz said that Hamas are the new Nazis. The world united to fight the Nazis. The civilised world united to fight ISIS. And now, the civilized world should stand with us as we defeat ISIS. This is our goal.”

Prior to this, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden both paid visits to Israel as part of the ongoing response to the November 7 terrorist assaults, which have so far claimed more than 1,400 lives.