Italy’s Meloni: If Russia hadn’t invaded Ukraine, Hamas wouldn’t have attacked Israel

Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine two years ago was the precursor to the Hamas militant group’s attack on Israel last October, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in an interview published on Saturday.

“If Russia had not invaded Ukraine, in all likelihood Hamas would not have launched such an attack against Israel,” Meloni told Italy’s Il Giornale newspaper, referring to the October 7 attack in which Hamas militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others.

“It was inevitable that such a serious violation of international law, moreover at the hands of a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, would have cascading consequences on other areas of the world, from the Middle East to the Balkans, up to Africa,” Meloni said in the interview, which was published as she arrived in Kyiv to mark the second anniversary of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“This is the game we are playing, and we must be aware. If international legality is not re-established in Ukraine, the outbreaks of conflict will continue to multiply,” she said.

Meloni also expressed support for a two-state solution, which she said is “in everyone’s interest, both Israel and Palestine.”