"The sense of this visit is to bring solidarity to the Roman and Italian Jewish community, because there is more to the terrible scenes coming from Israel than what we see in a normal and already tragic war scenario". Thus spoke Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, visiting the Synagogue in Rome on the fourth day of hostilities in the Middle East triggered by Hamas' attack on Israel. According to the Prime Minister, "in the house-to-house hunting of civilians, in the rounding up of children and young people there is hatred toward an entire people, something more than the fight against the State of Israel. I think that defending Israel's right to exist and defense is a way of defending these young people, these children, these women, and I think that clearly we have to intensify the protection of Jewish citizens on our territory as well, because the risk of emulation of the criminal acts that we have seen by Hamas could come to us as well. So I came here to say that we will defend these citizens from all forms of antisemitism, both old and new ones". The square next to the Major Temple is named after Stefano Gaj Taché: just yesterday it was forty-one years since, on October 9, 1982, during the Shemini Atzeret holiday, Rome's Jewish community was hit by a terrorist attack, resulting in the death of Stefano, just two years old. "A dark day, a wound for the nation that still has not healed," Meloni had said in a note, recalling the attack on the Rome Synagogue.
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