'Israel has no right to prevent creation of Palestinian state, build new settlements’: Italy’s Meloni

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday accused Israel of crossing the line of proportionality in its military campaign in Gaza and said the country “has no right to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.”

"Israel has exceeded that limit with a large-scale war disproportionately involving the Palestinian civilian population. And it is in crossing this limit that Israel has ended up violating humanitarian norms, causing a massacre among civilians," Meloni told the UN General Assembly in New York.

Reiterating Italy's support for a two-state solution, she said: “Israel has no right to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state tomorrow, nor to build new settlements in the West Bank to prevent it."

The premier stressed that her country will support "some of the sanctions proposed by the European Commission against Israel."

Meloni urged Israel to "get out of the trap of this war" for the sake of its history, democracy, and the values of the free world, warning that peace cannot be achieved through military means alone.

Meloni said Rome signed the New York Declaration on the two-state solution, but stressed that recognition of Palestine requires two preconditions – the release of all hostages and the exclusion of Hamas from government roles.

- Ukraine

Turning to the war in Ukraine, Meloni accused Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, of "deliberately trampling" the UN Charter by violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another state.

She said Moscow shows "no willingness" to accept peace negotiations and warned that the conflict has triggered "destabilizing effects far beyond" Ukraine’s borders.

Recalling that the UN was founded in 1945 with the primary purpose of preventing new conflicts after the Second World War, Meloni said that "the question we must ask ourselves, 80 years later, and looking around, is: have we succeeded? You all know the answer, because it's in the news, and it's merciless. Peace, dialogue, and diplomacy no longer seem able to convince and win. The use of force prevails on too many occasions."