WASHINGTON, DC, May 22, 2024 (Bee News Daily) —- Today, Spain, Ireland and Norway announced that their states would recognize an independent Palestinian state. The reflecting deepening international frustration with Israel’s war in Gaza, where the Israeli military was moving deeper into Rafah to shore up its control of the besieged enclave’s border with Egypt.
Israel has recalled their ambassador in Ireland, and more is expected to come.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on social media “The intention of several European countries to recognize a Palestinian state is a reward for terrorism. 80% of the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria support the terrible massacre of October 7. This evil cannot be given a state. This would be a terrorist state. It will try to repeat the massacre of October 7th again and again; we will not consent to this. Rewarding terrorism will not bring peace and neither will it stop us from defeating Hamas.”
Five Israeli girls have been kidnapped by Hamas. Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniela Gilboa and Naama Levy were taken hostage from the Nahal Oz Base, according to the Hostage Center. Families of hostages criticized the Israeli government’s failure to secure their release. The girls have been held hostage since October 7, 2023.
“A damning testament to the nation’s failure to bring home the hostages, who have been forsaken for 229 days,” the Hostage Center said in a release.
Ayelet Levy, Naama’s mother, said in a statement that her heart was with the 19-year-old “in those horrifying moments in the horrifying day of October 7th.”
“We only see in that video a fraction of the horrible things that are going on in their surrounding in the shelter. She is terrified and wounded, there is fear in her eyes, and she is saying what she can, she is begging for her life.”
______________________________
ABC News contributed to the article.