Family members of the victims killed and kidnapped by Hamas during its savage October 7 attack on Israeli civilians traveled to Rome on Wednesday for talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and other top officials.
Some of the visiting family members urged Europeans to “wake up” to the true dimensions of the Islamist war against Western civilization.
“Please wake up. To the people in the world, to the people in Europe, please wake up, because this is not a land conflict, this is a religious conflict,” said Avi Eylon, whose 23-year-old daughter Shira was murdered by Hamas at the now-infamous “peace music festival” massacre.
Eylon was referring to theories that Palestinian terrorist violence would subside if Israel met their demands and handed over territory to create a “Palestinian state.”
The visiting delegation noted that three of the murder victims on October 7 held dual Italian-Israeli citizenship, including Eviatar Moshe Kipnis and his wife and brother. Eviatar’s son Nadav told Reuters he wanted Italy and other Western governments to free the roughly 222 hostages held by Hamas.
“These people are just civilians who did not deserve any of these traumatic events that happened to them, which are comparable only to the Holocaust,” said Nadav.
“Israel itself can only deal with Hamas as a terrorist organization, but cannot negotiate with them,” he said, asking governments like Qatar and Egypt to step in as intermediaries.
“The narrative that Hamas are fighting for freedom is just false. Hamas are fighting other religions,” he said, echoing the point made by Avi Eylon.
On Monday, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani confirmed that all three of the Italian-Israeli dual citizens missing after the Hamas attack were dead. The last of the missing persons was a young man named Nir Forti.
“Dying at the age of 29, brutally killed by terrorists, is profoundly unjust,” Tajani observed.
Prime Minister Meloni met with the delegation of victims’ families at Palazzo Chigi, her official residence, on Tuesday.
Meloni’s office said she “expressed her deep shock at the ferocity with which Hamas attacked defenseless civilians, going house to house, not even sparing women, children and the elderly.”
“President Meloni renewed the Government’s solidarity and sympathy for the State of Israel, reiterated the strong concern for the hostages, and confirmed the commitment to their immediate release,” her official statement said.
