Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Wednesday that Italian recognition of the State of Palestine was closer after Hamas released the remaining Israeli hostages it took in the October 7 massacre who are still alive.

The release of the hostages was one of the conditions Premier Giorgia Meloni’s government had put on recognition of Palestine, the other being Hamas’s political and miliary exclusion from Gaza and the West Bank.

“Today the conditions are finally in place for a Gaza freed from the nightmare of Hamas and provisionally entrusted to international control with the active participation of Islamic countries,” Tajani told the Lower House.

“All this is with the outlook of achieving a true, democratic, peaceful, non-denominational Palestinian state, entrusted to a Palestinian National Authority profoundly renewed in its personnel and methods.

“A peaceful state recognized by Israel and which recognizes Israel.

“Recognition of the State of Palestine, once the conditions also set by Parliament are met, is now closer”.