Israel obliged to fight a war of survival
Statement by Hon Fiamma Nirenstein, Vice-President of the Foreign Affairs Committee
"Yesterday morning, just as we got back from Israel with a delegation of the Italy – Israel Friendship Parliamentary Association, we learnt of the news of the deliberate killing of three innocent civilians in their house in Kiryat Malachi, struck by one of the 450 rockets indiscriminately fired in the past 48 hours at the Southern Israel population of one and a half million innocent people. I say deliberate because this barrage of missiles is evidently meant to target the civil population, as always since Israel, in August 2005, disengaged from Gaza, nowadays entirely in the hands of Hamas’ Palestinians. Since then an intolerable barrage of missiles, partly long range (Fajr) Iranian made, partly Grad Katyusha, as well as other kind of rockets has been fired into Israel from the Gaza strip – adds Nirenstein – “The Association visited the population and expressed its solidarity to people at Kfar Asa kibbutz, harshly struck in the past few days. We saw children locked up for days in safe rooms, houses bombed, stores shut down, people always ready to reach the shelters built in every house within fifteen seconds. We heard stories of dead and wounded. My impression is that Israelis have been living in conditions that any other countries, including ours, would find unacceptable, as its civil population is gratuitously targeted with studied cruelty. I also think that the IDF has been trying to outmost contain the number of Palestinian casualties within the ongoing operation. Israel has only tried to put an end to the rocket fires by striking the perpetrators and weapons storage sites; Hamas’ deliberate exposure of its own civilians makes a perfectly targeted operation very difficult, which we of course regret, hoping that Gaza will some day take care of its own development and its own people rather than of the destruction of Israel. Clearly, the massive Israeli investments in the lives of its citizens with a widespread defense system, a shelter per each house, and the constant investment to protect schools and workplaces make it difficult for rockets to strike civilians in Israel. That’s why the death toll is contained despite the constant and relentless barrage of missiles. Hopefully the war fire will cease as soon as possible, but evidently beyond the natural human sorrow for each dead and wounded, Hamas needs to desist from its resolute determination to destroy the State of Israel. Numerous families like ours are going to face a nightmare in the next hours in the shelters under an attack that aims at killing civilians. We express them our solidarity while we hope for peace”.
Rome, November 15th, 2012