The Italian foreign minister said in statements to the Il Messaggero newspaper that “we are doing our part at all times, and the G7 is very united in this,” but acknowledged that Israel ignores such demands.

Tajani referred to the lack of response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to these efforts and asserted that “we can exert political pressure, and I assure you that we are applying it in a very convincing way.” He also commented on the results of a recent conversation with Israel Katz, his Israeli counterpart, with whom he discussed the complex situation in Lebanon, in the face of an increase in Israeli agressions.

The Italian minister said that his conversation with Katz focused on obtaining guarantees that Israel would avoid carrying out actions near the military bases of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the south of the country. “It seems to me that these pressures are having success,” since “we have been assured that there will be no such attacks,” he said, and revealed that “in the meantime, in Beirut we have reduced our contingent committed to training the Lebanese army” and “from more than 100 soldiers we have gone down to 15.”

Regarding a possible solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, with the plan of two peoples and two states, the Italian foreign minister insisted that “the objective must remain absolutely the same.” “All parties must understand that there are no other solutions,” he insisted, and made reference to his government’s position that “the only condition for peace is to give Israel the security to live in tranquility and develop” as well as “allow the Palestinian people to realize their dream of having their own State.”

On this subject, he reaffirmed that Rome supports the deployment of a United Nations mission to the region, headed by Arabs with the participation of Italian soldiers; “we are very willing to send them, to reunite Gaza with the West Bank,” under a government of the Palestinian National Authority, he said.

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