Roberta METSOLA, President of the European Parliament, Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, and Isaac Herzog, President of Israel, hold a press point point during their visit to Israel. The European leaders visit the country to express solidarity with the victims of the Hamas terrorist attacks. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

press point

EU - Israel (T)

official visit

METSOLA, Roberta (EPP, MT, EP President)

Israel

VON DER LEYEN, Ursula (DE, EC)

HERZOG, Isaac

Joint press point by Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Ursula von der LEYEN, EC President, and Isaac HERZOG, President of Israel

SOUNDBITE (English), Isaac HERZOG, President of Israel, I want to welcome and I want to thank to very important leaders of Europe, to very important voices of clarity, moral clarity and strength who came to support the state of Israel. In this dark hour that we are faced with, as our enemies have butchered and tortured and abducted and kidnap so many Israeli citizens, innocent civilians.

SOUNDBITE (English), Isaac HERZOG, President of Israel, I want to welcome the speaker, the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola. I want to welcome the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, two great friends of the state of Israel and Jewish people, and two great fighters for morality, decency and human rights.

SOUNDBITE (English), Isaac HERZOG, President of Israel, Those voices must be heard. We are in this very complicated and difficult challenge. We are faced with clear demands from the international community. Number one, we're demanding that the hostages be returned to Israel immediately with no conditions of any kind. Number two, we must eradicate Hamas and its infrastructure in order to be able to elect the Palestinians in the region, live decently.

SOUNDBITE (English), Isaac HERZOG, President of Israel, What is happening now in Gaza that Hamas is stopping and blocking citizens, civilians in Gaza from moving out from the war now. This is what they're doing. They're using civilians as human shields in order to protect their military intentions and their vital intentions. This is exactly what the issue.

SOUNDBITE (English), Isaac HERZOG, President of Israel, After destroying their own electricity infrastructure, after destroying their own water infrastructure by missiles and attacks of their own. Now, they're also holding their citizens as hostages.

SOUNDBITE (English), Isaac HERZOG, President of Israel, I demand from the international community to be extremely crystal clear about demanding the immediate removal of the civilians to another area, so that there will be, under international law, that ability to continue to fight and defend the state of Israel. And number three, the immediate release of all hostages and return to Israel immediately. Thank you and welcome, and thank you for our friendship.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, President of the European Parliament, Thank you all of you. First of all, I would like, dear President, to return to Israel under happier circumstances. We came together, myself and the President of the Commission to express solidarity after the most heinous acts that your country has seen in generations. We have seen and witnessed, we went to Kfar Azzan, and to Re' Im and saw the attacks that took place and the most atrocious situation, massacre, that we saw.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, President of the European Parliament, A couple of points for my own thoughts: the European Parliament have invested its full solidarity with you and your people. We also said that Hamas is a terrorist organisation that does not represent the aspiration of the Palestinian people and therefore it must and we can stop Hamas. And I know that we can work together through the humanitarian consequences of this barbaric act.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the European Commission, Thank you very much for receiving us here. And indeed, we are friends of Israel. And when your friend is under attack, we have to stand together. We stand by you. It was very important for us to come here today. Thank you very much for hosting us.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the European Commission, We have been, this morning, in Kfar Azzan and they have no words to describe what we have seen, the suffering of the people, the atrocious attacks from Hamas. These are acts of war. And therefore, Israel has the right to defend itself and Israel has even the duty to defend and protect.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the European Commission, I fully subscribe to your call on Hamas to release all hostages immediately and to refrain to completely blockchain for civilians as human shields. Hamas is a threat not only to Israel, but Hamas is also a threat to the Western people. And therefore, again, our call very clearly release the hostages.