‘What we saw with our own eyes today is the result of this terrorist attack … I believe that Hamas should not live in this world.’
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
Croatian, German, Italian, and Lithuanian parliamentarians, many of them visiting the country for the first time, arrived in Israel to see first-hand the devastation created by Hamas terrorists on October 7th.
They began with a briefing from an IDF officer before visiting the military morgue at the Shura army base near Ramla and viewed unidentified body parts.
The group then went to the Sderot Observation Center where they saw footage from Hamas terrorists who filmed their atrocities.
After the video, they were addressed by Superintendent Micky Rosenfeld, the Israel Police’s spokesman who explained the impact of the attacks, and that Sderot’s population, as the result of the Hamas massacre on October 7th, went from 30,000 to 2,000.
Rosenfeld also explained that 125,000 Israelis are displaced from the North and the South of the country and are living in hotels.
The group then visited the burned and broken remains of Kibbutz Kfar Aza and were led on a tour by Israel Lander, a resident of Kfar Aza for 30 years.
Lander spoke of his own family’s survival, the 63 residents who were murdered by Hamas, and the others who were taken hostage.
The parliamentarians were profoundly affected by the visit and many came away with a more informed perspective on the war between Israel and Hamas.
Italian MP Mauro Del Barba, from Italia Viva, told The Media Line, “We didn’t know how many fighters came from the Gaza Strip … so many more than 1,000. ”
Del Barba added, “We didn’t realize that they had a bigger plan than the one we saw and probably a plan to conquer the entire country and to provoke a big war.”
Italian Senator Francesco Arcieri said, “What we saw with our own eyes today is the result of this terrorist attack. I believe that the ferocity of Hamas is the ferocity of another world, and that is why I believe that Hamas should not live in this world.”
This trip and other delegations organized by Elnet are intended to allow European politicians to bear witness and share their impressions in their home countries.
Elnet’s Turkish-born Deputy Executive Director Yossi Abravanel said, “One way to do it is to bring politicians to Israel and show them the reality so they can testify in their media and in front of their people when they go back to Europe.”
Abravanel added that while 80% of US congressmen and senators have visited Israel, only 15% of their European counterparts have made the trip.