Reprisals, attacks on civilians in Gaza, Ukraine unacceptable: Italian president

By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) – Italian President Sergio Mattarella said that reprisals and attacks on civilians in Gaza and Ukraine are unacceptable, local media reported on Monday.

Addressing the Sixth Conference of Italian Ambassadors in the World in the capital city of Rome, he said, “It is unacceptable that, in armed conflicts of this century, attacks and reprisals are carried out that affect the defenseless civilian population,” in reference to the situation in Gaza and Ukraine, according to the state-run ANSA news agency.

“There is a need to make the rules of international humanitarian law more stringent,” he said.

Italy has "strongly condemned the Hamas attack against defenseless victims which recalled the Nazi brutality of the Holocaust, but we also want Israel's reaction to be proportionate, which spares the civilian population," said the president.

"But we also want Israel's reaction to be proportionate, which spares the civilian population," he noted.

Israel's air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas have killed at least 19,453 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 52,286 others, according to health authorities in the enclave.

The war has left Gaza in ruins with half of the coastal territory's housing stock damaged or destroyed, and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely-populated enclave amid shortages of food and clean water.

Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack, while more than 130 hostages remain in captivity.