President meets families of hostages
Sakellaropoulou calls for their unconditional release, PM talks on the phone with Blinken
The president of the Hellenic Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, welcomed the families of the Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip, extending her and the Greek people’s unwavering support.
She met with Galia and Ilay David, the mother and brother of 22-year-old hostage Evyatar David, as well as Orit and Aviram Meir, the mother and uncle of hostage Almog Meir, who is also being held captive in the Gaza Strip.
A visibly moved Sakellaropoulou said that the hostage-taking of hundreds of people, including young children, women and the elderly, is a trauma to the collective conscience of humanity and constitutes one of the most serious war crimes, for which the perpetrators must face the consequences.
Human life, she emphasized, has value regardless of color, race or religion, adding that what is paramount is the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
To this end, she noted that international pressure on Hamas should be intensified in order to allow the communication of the abductees and of course their safe return to their families and home. She also underlined that Greece unconditionally supports every diplomatic effort in this direction.
Sakellaropoulou spoke with the mother of Almog Meir, who was unable to hold back her tears, as she chronicled the hostage-taking and the last communication with her son.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis over the phone on Monday. Mitsotakis repeated Israel’s right to self-defense and Gaza’s urgent need for humanitarian aid.
According to government information, the PM repeated Greece’s condemnation of the Hamas terrorist attack and Israel’s right to self-defense.
Mitsotakis also referred to his “increasing worry on the protection of civilians in Gaza” and emphasized that “humanitarian pauses and continuous humanitarian aid to Gaza are mandatory.” Earlier on Monday Secretary Blinken was in Ankara in a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan.
“All of this is a work in progress,” Blinken said before leaving Turkey. “We don’t obviously agree on everything, but there are common views on some of the imperatives of the moment that we’re working on together.”
His trip wrapped up a hectic weekend of travel to garner support for the Biden administration’s plan for “humanitarian pauses” to Israel’s military operation in Gaza, which took him from Israel to Jordan, the occupied West Bank, Cyprus and Iraq.
