MEPs also call on the Commission to take a decision on a proposal for a directive on the protection of the environment

“ Ua member of this House was apparently shot vandalising an exhibition” in the European Parliament “which marks the memory of the victims of the terrorist attack perpetrated in Israel on 7 October” 2023, Roberta Metsola said in the Chamber.

“ We take this case extremely seriously and all the appropriate measures provided for in our procedures are under way, including respect for the right of the person concerned to be heard,” he added.

The incident is currently being examined by the services of the European Parliament, had earlier indicated a spokesperson to the news agency France-Presse (AFP).

“ We cannot tolerate acts of this kind that can deter people from expressing themselves, we cannot tolerate material damage and we cannot tolerate attempts at intimidation instead of debate,” Metsola insisted.

According to the MEPs, Rima Hassan has explained “not long after the facts”.

[“On leaving the exhibition site”, he removed the Israeli flag from support. The flag of the European Union, fixed on the same support, ended up falling inadvertently because of the imbalance. No flag has been trampled or damaged”, according to the reaction sent by email to AFP.

“Our gesture is part of the denunciation of the genocide that continues to be carried out by the Israeli Government”, but it did not aim “in any way at the people to whom this event intended to pay homage, nor at their memory”, they added.

In the Chamber, she reiterated this argument. “It is perfectly possible, as we did with our group, to mark the memory of the victims of ‘October 7’ without joining the Israeli Genocidal State,” he said.

On the subject, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar today made harsh criticism of Hassan.

“Shameful, scandalous, but unfortunately not surprising. The desecration of the exhibition in honor of the victims of ‘October 7’ in the European Parliament, carried out by the MEP of the extreme left Rima Hassan, demonstrates, above all, the little respect she has for her own institution,” he wrote in the X.

On Monday evening, right-wing MEP François-Xavier Bellamy declared that Rima Hassan had “fallen the European flag and the Israeli flag”, which he said was “a form of complicity with those who, including in Europe, seek to import again the anti-Semite hatred that marked the darkest hours in the history of our continent”.

“Rima Hassan treads an Israeli flag in the European Parliament. October 7th is the day after tomorrow. LFI, at the height of indecency”, reacted Monday, for her part, MEP Nathalie Loiseau (center, Renew) in the personal account on X.

According to an AFP count based on official data, 1,221 people were killed during the October 7, 2023 attack, mostly civilians. And another 251 were abducted and taken to Gaza by the fighters of the Palestinian Islamist movement.

The offensive launched by Israel in retaliation in Gaza caused more than 74,200 deaths, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health and whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.