The foreign minister has confirmed that a Hungarian construction company is building mobile tactical shelters that will be used for protection against rocket strikes in Israel.
Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said after talks with his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi in Petah Tikva that under the deal signed between the Hungarian company and an Israeli defense industry firm, Hungary will build over 1,000 such shelters which will be used to shield thousands of Israelis.
Minister Szijjártó said Hungary assigns strategic importance to its cooperation with Israel, “which we also demonstrate through our actions as opposed to just paying lip service to the idea,” the minister said. “We turn our words into actions, and we are also capable of contributing to the protection of thousands or tens of thousands of Israelis against rocket strikes,” he said. Israel was attacked by a terrorist organization, which fired thousands of rockets on Israeli cities and densely populated areas, “endangering thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of lives”.
Minister Szijjártó highlighted the US-backed “Abraham Accords” as the key to peace in the Middle East, noting that they had allowed Israel to normalize its relations with several Arab countries. Hungary, he said, was also pushing for stronger cooperation between the EU and Israel, adding that the government regretted “that this position doesn’t have a clear majority in the European Union right now”.
Finally, Minister Szijjártó said anti-Semitism was again on the rise in some major cities in western Europe. “There were already signs of this at the start of the illegal migration waves, but in recent weeks there’ve been openly anti-Semitic demonstrations in some major western European cities which millions of Europeans rightfully found concerning,” he said.