G7 defence summit convenes as conflicts rage

With tensions in the Middle East rising and Ukraine bracing for another winter of conflict, the G7 defence ministers began negotiations on Saturday.

As the Group of Seven’s rotating chair, Italy hosted the organization’s first ministerial conference on defence in Naples, a southern city that also serves as the location of a NATO facility.

All of the guests, including EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and NATO chief Mark Rutte, were welcomed by Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto.

“I believe that our presence today… sends a strong message to those who try to hinder our democratic systems,” Crosetto said as he opened the event.

“The brutal Russian aggressions in Ukraine and the indeed critical situation in the Middle East, combined with the profound instability of sub-Saharan Africa and the increasing tension in the Indo-Pacific region highlight a deteriorated security framework with forecasts for the near future that cannot be positive,” he said.

“Ample space” would be given to discussing the escalating Middle East conflict during the one-day summit, Crosetto said a day earlier, in Brussels.

The conflict in Ukraine, security and development in Africa, and the state of affairs in the Asia-Pacific region are all items on the summit’s agenda.

The gathering takes place two days after Israel declared that it had executed Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas and the mastermind of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel that led to the disastrous Gaza War in retaliation.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, declared that Sinwar’s death in Palestinian land marked “the beginning of the end” for the war against Hamas, while US President Joe Biden stated that it provided “a path to peace”.

Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, was in Lebanon on Friday. Israel and Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, are at war there.

Speaking in Beirut, Meloni denounced as “unacceptable” attacks on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon following accusations by the UN force that Israel was aiming at their positions.

About 1,000 Italian soldiers serve in the UN peacekeeping operation in Lebanon, together with soldiers from over 50 other nations.