Romanians and the Gaza conflict
Romania has evacuated more than 300 people from Gaza
Bogdan Matei, 19.12.2023, 13:50
In todays world, there is no local armed conflict without global impact and effects. Romania seems far from the epicenter of the new carnage in the Middle East, the Gaza Strip, but neither the state nor the Romanian citizens are indifferent to the tragic developments there. There are hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens originally from Romania or their descendants, and many of them also hold Romanian citizenship. There have also been for decades, in many countries, from Algeria to Syria, mixed families, generally founded by Romanians who married Arabs who had come to study in Romania.
The Gaza Strip is no exception, currently the theater of the bloody offensive launched more than two months ago by the Israeli army against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, after the atrocities committed by the latter in southern Israel, on October 7. A new group of 14 people, Romanian citizens and members of their families, evacuated from the Gaza Strip, arrived in Romania on Monday, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bucharest has announced. According to the source, these people arrived in Egypt on Saturday, through the Rafah border point, and were later taken over by the representatives of the Romanian embassy in Cairo. They were accompanied to the Egyptian capital, from where they were boarded for Romania.
So far, 302 people, Romanian citizens and their family members, have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip, says the Romanian MFA, which adds that it stays in contact with the Israeli and Egyptian authorities, in order to facilitate the evacuation of other citizens as well, in case there are requests in this regard, depending on developments on the field and the agreement of the parties involved.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also announced the death of another hostage with dual citizenship, Israeli and Romanian, in the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli embassy in Bucharest announced her identity: 27-year-old artist, Inbar Haiman, killed, according to the embassy, by Hamas terrorists. She was a student, she made extraordinary works of street art and was known in Israel and the world as Pink, an unmistakable signature – the embassy says on its Facebook account. She had been kidnapped by terrorists on October 7, while she was attending the Nova music festival.
About a week ago, Israeli and Romanian authorities also confirmed the death of another hostage with dual citizenship, a man kidnapped also on October 7 and who allegedly died in the first days of captivity. According to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among the people held hostage by terrorists in the Gaza Strip there is currently only one Romanian with dual citizenship. The Embassy of Romania in Tel Aviv maintains contact on this issue with the Israeli authorities, the ministry has also stressed. (MI)
