Romanian Senate condemns missile attacks against Israel

The Romanian Senate's Foreign Policy Committee strongly condemn the missile attacks against the state of Israel by the terrorist organisation Hamas and other terrorist organisations, committee chairman Titus Corlatean said on Tuesday after a meeting with Israeli Ambassador David Saranga, agerpres reports.

The Israeli diplomat had a meeting with members of the Senate Foreign Policy Committee on Tuesday at the Parliament House.

"International law and the UN Charter clearly legitimise the right to self-defense of the state of Israel. There is this concern in Romania with the innocent civilian population on both Israeli and Palestinian sides. (...) I welcomed the concern of the Israeli authorities in this endeavour. I welcome the concern of the Israeli authorities that in this legitimate response operation they should limit innocent civilian casualties as best they can. Unfortunately, Hamas uses the civilian human shield not only by deploying its military or cyber capabilities in schools or hospitals, but also by using emotion in the Palestinian community or in other states, and here radicalisation is the goal pursued. It is the position of the members of the Foreign Policy Committee that in the absence of favourable conditions for a peace process (...) with the existence of two states - Palestinian and Israeli - coexisting in peace, there will always be security risks," Corlatean said.

He pointed out that in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Romania has consistently supported "a process that will gradually bring back the possibility of negotiations, of political solutions for peace."

"We reject this kind of conduct of terrorist organisations that generate insecurity and victims," added Corlatean.

He voiced satisfaction that, in the case of requests from Romanians in the Gaza Strip, they will be able to be "extracted" from there.

"There is a community originating from Romania of 400,000 people, 700,000 in the second generation in Israel, but there is also a community from Romania in the Palestinian territories. I want to thank the ambassador for information - if there are cases of Romanians, families with children, from Gaza there will be co-operation in order to be able to extract the Romanian citizens who would eventually request support," said Corlatean.