Hungary To Build Israel’s New Anti-Rocket Shelters
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News reporting from Budapest, Hungary
(Worthy News) – Hungary will build more than 1,000 mobile tactical shelters for protection against rocket strikes in Israel, Worthy News learned Wednesday.
Under the deal signed by a Hungarian construction firm and an Israeli defense company, the shelters “could shield thousands of Israelis,” said Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó.
He spoke after talks with his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva. Their meeting came just weeks after thousands of rockets were fired towards Israel by Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza.
Separately, Foreign Minister Szijjártó told Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Hungary would support Israel politically.
Szijjártó said in published remarks that Israel and Hamas had practically been treated as equals on the international political scene, “as if Hamas group were some kind of NGO.” However, “it should be made clear that Hamas is a terrorist group that attacked Israel,” he added.
DEFENDING ISRAEL
Speaking to Hungarian media, Szijjártó stressed “Israel’s right to defend itself.”
Hungary, one of Israel’s closest allies in the European Union, last month refused to join the other 26 EU member states demanding a truce in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Szijjártó called the EU declaration “one-sided and unbalanced,” and he pledged to Prime Minister Netanyahu that Hungary would also block other “anti-Israel” statements.
Hungary will “veto” any declaration let resolution that is “unfair” to the Jewish state, “takes an anti-Israel stance or has anti-Semitic undertones,” he said.
Prime Minister Netanyahu appreciated that. “We have great friends, and you are along the top of the list,” he told the Hungarian minister.
It comes despite ongoing anti-Semitic incidents in Hungary, a nation that was once a close ally of Nazi Germany. More than 600,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust or Shoah, and many survivors later emigrated to Israel.
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