Warning to Iran not to attack him Israel addressed the ambassador of Israel in Greece Noam Katzspeaking at the 9th Delphi Economic Forum.

“Israel is a strong country, it has very strong defense measures and also the ability to react,” said Mr. Katz. “I hope they don’t make that mistake. They got a warning from the whole international community, starting with the American president, they got the same messages from Germany, from France, from Italy, from the United Kingdom and also from us.”

“The Ayatollah regime in Iran is an extremist regime with hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East,” it said. “It is a regime that has built a network of powerful proxies across the Middle East: the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, which actually controls the Lebanese regime. One of their proxies is Hamas. This whole network decided to go to war with Israel. In this network of proxies the main driver is Iran.”

THE ambassador of Israel noted that “democracies do not go to war lightly. Israel is at war because it was forced upon them. If Iran chooses the path of war, Israel has the means to respond. We hope and call on them not to do so.”

Mr. Katz noted that “Israel was forced into this war when the terrorist organization Hamas decided to launch an all-out attack against it and on October 7 carried out one of the most horrific and barbaric massacres of Israeli civilians and kidnapped over 250 Israelis and citizens of other countries”.

He reiterated that Israel’s goals, as stated from the beginning, are to dismantle Hamas, release all our hostages, and “create a new reality in Gaza that will no longer pose a threat to Israeli citizens, and also to create the conditions in Gaza that will allow us in the future not only to stabilize the situation, but also to end our conflicts with the Palestinians in the long term.”

“The war is not against the Palestinians, it is against Hamas. Israelis, Palestinians and all neighboring countries will benefit from this,” Israel’s ambassador said.

“We are in the middle of a war. We are not at the end, we have not achieved all our goals. We have disbanded 18 battalions of the command, but there are still six left in the city of Rafah and in the central Gaza Strip. We did not release all the hostages. Hamas is still holding 133 hostages, denying any information about their condition, any access to the Red Cross or other organizations.”

Asked about the international community’s reactions to the humanitarian situation in Gaza, he noted that “the ideology of Hamas is exactly like that of ISIS, I did not see the international community ready to negotiate with ISIS and leave ISIS in its place. Hamas must be dissolved.”

He also mentioned that the United States and Israel share the same goal and that is the dissolution of Hamas.

“What we agreed with the Americans is that in order to protect civilians as much as possible we will create safe zones where they can live, redirect the humanitarian aid that today most of it falls into the hands of Hamas, to other places.”

He added that “we still hope that in the meantime, we will be able to reach a framework for the release of the hostages that will provide some kind of relief and stop the violence for a few weeks.”

“We know that the war can end immediately if all the hostages are released and Hamas hands over its weapons,” he said. “The war was chosen and started by Hamas and therefore until it surrenders its weapons or leaves Gaza and releases all hostages, the war will continue. We will do it, as we have tried to do so far, respecting international law, the law of war, and we will do everything to protect civilians.”

Turkey is playing a destructive role in the war with Hamas

Referring to Israel’s relations with the countries of the region, he pointed out that Egypt is part of the architecture of peace in the Middle East.

“Sometimes we have our differences and we resolve them like democracies through diplomacy and dialogue. They are very strong partners, they have a constructive role. It is also part of the moderate countries and the Middle East, I would say.”

He noted that “Turkey is currently playing a very destructive role in terms of the war with Hamas, it supports Hamas, it supports murderers, rapists, war criminals. They don’t support the Palestinians they support Hamas. This is devastating.”

“It’s being on the wrong side of history. It brings a lot of tension to our region,” he pointed out and added: “Having said that, Turkey is an important country on the world stage of the Middle East, we would like to minimize friction with Turkey and hope that it will come with more constructive policies and strategies in terms of concerns the Middle East”.

The Greek-Israeli relationship is strategic

The Israeli ambassador pointed out that Athens and Tel Aviv share strong values, have common interests and have built a very strong relationship.

“It is a strategic relationship and serves the benefit of Israelis, Greeks and people living in the region and beyond,” he said.

“Greece supports the immediate release of all hostages without conditions, expresses serious concerns, like everyone in the world, including the Israelis, for the civilians and civilians involved in Gaza.”

This, as he noted, “allows Greece to have channels of communication with us and with other nations in the region. And so I think it’s a very constructive role.”

He recalled that the Greek Prime Minister visited Israel immediately after the start of the war, while visits have been made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Defense and the Minister of Health who has just returned from Israel, having signed an agreement on cooperation in the health sector.

Asked about the possibility of Donald Trump’s re-election, he noted that the relationship between Israel and the United States is not based on one administration or the other, but is bipartisan.

“Whichever American president is elected, the United States and Israel will remain staunch allies,” he noted, adding: “I really hope that we will be able to end the war as soon as possible, but this is not because of the election in the United States, it’s because it serves our own interests.”

Finally referring to the East Med project he said that “it was not a specific project, but basically an idea of ​​how we will take natural gas from the Eastern Mediterranean and deliver it to Europe”.

“Europe has many needs. It might be easier to do it today with LNG rather than through a very technically complex project like (the) East Med (pipeline),” he said.

“But by the way, East Med is not out of the game yet. Its usefulness is still being evaluated, but it is a commercial idea. The idea is there and whether this is done through a pipeline or through LNG facilities that will bring more gas to Europe,” he concluded.