Premier Giorgia Meloni has expressed solidarity with Israel and with Italy's Jews after the "barbaric" Hamas attacks at the weekend that killed over 700 people including 260 at a music festival, with dozens of civilians taken hostage.
In statement on Monday - the 40th anniversary of a deadly Palestinian militant attack on Rome's Great Synagogue in which a toddler died and dozens of people were injured - Meloni deplored that attack and decried Saturday's deadly Hamas assault on Israel.
"On 9 October 1982, during the celebration of Shemini Atzeret, the Jewish community of Rome was hit by a terrible terrorist attack. Forty people were injured and one person was killed, little Stefano Gaj Tache, a two-year-old boy," read the statement.
"A dark day, a wound for the nation that has not yet healed. No one paid for the bombs and machine gun fire which on that day ended Stefano's life, devastated a family, caused pain to many others and shocked an entire community," the statement went on.
"Today we renew our commitment not to forget what happened and to continue to ask that the historical and procedural truth be revealed about the facts of that terrible day," the statement said.
"Today more than ever, after the horrible and barbaric events that are taking place in Israel, the government expresses its closeness and solidarity with the people of Israel and the Italian Jewish community," the statement added.
"Terror will never prevail," the statement concluded.
