The Israeli Ambassador to Albania, Ms. Galit Peleg, does not mince her words. In this interview with Albanian Daily News she criticizes the absence of any reaction whatsoever, by Albanian women leaders regarding the treatment of the Israeli women hostages on this March 8. Understandably, this is not an easy interview, as the main topic of conversation is the ongoing war in Gaza and the immense suffering of Palestinian civilians.

“Hamas leaders, who most of them are located safely in Doha with their families, don’t care too much for the lives of the Palestinians, whom they use as human shields,” says Ambassador Peleg, stating that this war was forced upon Israel and it will fight it until the completion of two goals: The release of all hostages and eradication of Hamas.

“It is the responsibility of the Palestinians to strive for peace. They must decide that if they want a state of their own one day, if they want to build something for the future of their children, they have to invest in their education and stop teaching them hate,” says Ms. Peleg.

The Ambassador also dwells on Albanian-Israeli relations and the potential for closer cooperation, as well as on her country’s relations with the Arab world.     

-Madame Ambassador, thank you for this opportunity. I would like to start with a ‘soft’ question. The world – and Albania – just marked the International Women’s Day, with activities and messages, even a protest. As a woman diplomat, would you share your thoughts on this day?

 -International Women’s’ Day is an important mark for all of us as a human society. History teaches us that countries which deprive women’s rights stay behind in other areas as well.

Usually, we mark this day in Israel too, to stress the need for equal rights for women, but this year is different. This year we cannot talk about terms like empowerment and equality when women’s basic rights for freedom are being stepped over by terrorists in Gaza. In an awkward coincidence four days prior to March 8th, the UN special representative for sexual violence in conflict published a report after visiting Israel. The report supports what Israel claims for almost five months, about the horrific sexual assaults committed by Hamas terrorists on October 7th. It also refers to the situation of the 19 female hostages that are still in the hands of Hamas, together with the 115 Israeli men kept in Gaza.

The whole world must loudly scream and call for their immediate release. Unfortunately for FIVE MONTHS the women organizations around the world haven’t made a sound. Why? You tell me.

So, this year our embassy in Tirana decided to mark this day in several complementing activities:

During the weekend of International Women’s’ Day, we showed on the commercial screens, around Skënderbej square and Blloku area, a clip showing the faces of the women hostages, in order to raise awareness to this important issue. We invited an Israeli martial arts master, Dr. Guy Spak, who trained Albanian women that suffered domestic violence in self-defense and also gave a lecture about this topic at the Social Sciences department at Tirana University.  

 In addition, I personally sent a letter to many women leaders in Albania, including members of the government, parliament, women organizations and even foreign ambassadors in Tirana and sent them a link to the UN report. In this message I asked them to raise their voices for the hostages. Unfortunately, until this moment, I got zero response. Zero.

Again, I don’t know why women advocates are refrained from protecting those Israeli women that were taken hostages by terrorists, and are not protected by any law, not visited by the Red Cross or any other international entity. It’s like the world would fight for the rights of all the women in the world. Unless they are Israeli.

 So, when you ask me about my thoughts on this special day dedicated to women, all I can think of are Shiri, Noa, Arbel, Romi, Doron, Agam, Karina and the others. Their pictures are in front of my eyes 24 hours a day, until they will return home.

-I would like a frank opinion about the current stage of Albanian-Israeli cooperation – which as we understand – is progressing in the fields of cyber defense, for instance. Do you think the continuing migration of our best workforce hampers the idea of increasing foreign investments, Israeli included, in our country?

 -I believe that these two topics intertwine in a way. Meaning, the more businesses you will have here for young people, the better conditions they will have, then more likely they will stay in Albania. I am well aware of this challenge you are facing, which is, by the way a problem for all the countries in the region. In general, relatively young economies are suffering from this phenomenon. The question is what can you do to stop it? Attracting investors is one thing, creating cooperation in fields of what is considered the future, such as tech jobs, cyber, AI, etc. is a very good direction and we all know that Israel has a lot to offer in these fields.

As an embassy in Tirana, we have dedicated a lot of time to this area. For example, in 2023 we organized two business forums that were mostly related to tech. We had very impressive attendance of over 100 businesses interested in Albania. I know that some of them have already started to work with local businesses and authorities. In February we established in Tirana a forum of Albanian and Israeli entrepreneurs called Beer Tech, to which we invited young Albanians from tech world to an informal gathering with representatives from the Israeli scene. The first visitor from Israel was an AI specialist that also met with the Prime Minister, and director of AKSHI. His visit was covered by your newspaper. Now we are already working on the next Beer-Tech gathering in May that will be in collaboration with the Digital Nomads festival in Tirana. I promise we have something worthy to look forward to.

-Allow me to focus on the ongoing crisis in Gaza. The most recent efforts for a cease-fire failed, whereas the situation of Palestinian civilians is dire, to put it mildly. How would you comment on the US president Biden’s remarks that Mr. Netanyahu is not doing enough to prevent more civilian deaths?

 -First let us not forget how it all started. Israel was attacked by thousands of Palestinians from Gaza, most of them active terrorists of Hamas, but also civilians that saw there’s “kill the Jews party” and joined. We saw it in very clear footages they uploaded on their social media. Including journalists of Al Jazeera, who took selfies with bodies of Israelis and hostages. We saw the hostages taken to Gaza in open trucks and the mobs chasing the cars and striking them as they were tied and guns were pointed to their heads.

 Having said that, Israel stated more than once that this war is not against the Palestinian civilians, but it has two very clear goals: One is the release of ALL hostages and Two is to eradicate Hamas from controlling Gaza. From the beginning of the fights in Gaza, Israel has allowed the entry of tons of humanitarian aid into Gaza. In fact, since October 8th until yesterday, Israel enabled entry of 303,930 tons of goods into Gaza: food, water, medical supplies, shelter equipment. As well as a total of 182 tanks of fuel and 394 tanks of cooking gas.

I’ll say even further: we have hundreds of military casualties in this war, and we care dearly for each one of them and the agonizing families. Yet, in many cases our soldiers were killed because of consideration of not hurting civilians. I assume you wouldn’t find in the international media the operation conducted by Israeli soldiers where they rescued 70 orphans from an institute in Gaza and moved them to the West Bank. Or about the women and children that were used by Hamas terrorists as human shields, that Israeli soldiers rescued and called a doctor to examine them, after taking over the terrorists.

Unfortunately, Hamas leaders, who most of them are located safely in Doha with their families, don’t care too much for the lives of the Palestinians. You could listen to their very clear statements to the western media, how they don’t see themselves responsible for the Palestinians, even though they knew exactly how strongly Israel would react to the massacre of October 7th. They simply don’t care. That’s why not only they don’t protect their civilians, but they use them as human shields. Since the beginning of this war Israel provided enough evidence how Hamas used schools, kindergartens, mosques and even hospitals, to hide weapons and missiles, to launch missiles. You can also see in the footage presented to the media daily, how every truck of humanitarian aid that entered Gaza, is immediately controlled by Hamas that position an armed terrorist on its roof to make sure they take the goods and distribute it to their own people.

Not mentioning the fact that Hamas is the elected government in Gaza. The majority of Gazans voted for Hamas in 2007, and unfortunately, they pay for it since.

- Please let me repeat a question posed by various foreign commentators regarding the current state of affairs in Gaza, which goes like this: Even if most, or all, of Hamas fighters are eliminated, doesn’t Israel think that the suffering of the civilians which include many children will produce future Hamas soldiers?

 -As I mentioned above, this war was forced upon us and we are not happy with it. Hamas can end this war at any given time:  all they need to do is release all the hostages they kidnapped and surrender.

The government of Israel has responsibility first and foremost to provide security to its own citizens. As long as Hamas is controlling Gaza, NO Israeli citizen or resident is safe.

 The October massacre created a new reality in Israel; we understood that after 76 years since Israel was founded, we are back in an existential war. We don’t like it, but we have no other choice, than win it! We have more then 130, 000 Israelis still displaced, because their houses were either burned to the ground, or keep being bombed, either from Gaza or from Lebanon by Hezbollah. Tens of children in Israel became orphans by losing one or both parents, many parents lost their children, while others are still waiting for their loved ones to come back. Not only Palestinians suffer in this situation. Yet no one asks oneself if these Israeli orphans will grow up to be terrorists.

It is the responsibility of the Palestinians to strive for peace. They must decide that if they want a state of their own one day, if they want to build something for the future of their children, they have to invest in their education and stop teaching them hate. The late (and wise) Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir said “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.” I think some of them already do. In Gaza, unfortunately, they are not there yet.

-We learned that the Palestinian Authority PM, Mohammad Shtayyeh resigned, in a move that was seen as an effort for an expanded after-war role on behalf of the Authority in Gaza. Is this expanded role viewed as the most viable solution by Israel for a post-Hamas Gaza?

 -At the moment we are not discussing the day after. We want to see the end of this war first. We want to see all hostages returning home to their families. Also, those who were murdered and their bodies were kidnapped need to be returned so their families will be able to bury them and find peace. 

Israel has no aspiration to continue controlling Gaza or deciding for the Palestinians who to elect or nominate. The first concern of the government of Israel is the safety of the lives of its citizens, and to make sure they don’t continue to live in shelters or in fear of a repetition of October 7th. I assume that any solution that will include these elements will be viable for Israel.

-Madame Ambassador, would you share with us any update regarding the situation with the remaining Israeli hostages?

-As you probably know, Israel received no official updates on the hostages. We gather fractions of details from the hostages that were released after two months in Gaza, and from the horrifying footages that Hamas uploads from time to time, as a part of their psychological terrorism to torture the families.

We do know they are being held in very bad conditions, they suffer of mal nutrition, physical violence and bad medical treatment, if at all. Those of them who rely on medications didn’t get any for the last five months. We also know they suffer sexual assaults, mainly the women, but also men. We have no knowledge who and how many of them are no longer among the living.

We have to remember that the youngest hostage, Kfir Bibas, is thirteen months old (!) and spent almost half of his life in captivity. The oldest is 85 years old.

The international community, who worries for all disadvantaged populations in the world, must raise its voice and put pressure on Hamas to release them immediately. Pressure must be put also on the Palestinian leadership, on Qatar and Iran who support Hamas actively and financially. Their situation is getting worse with every day that passes and they are in the hands of Hamas.

But so far, the world is silent.

-On January 27, the world marked the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Increased cases of Antisemitism are reported around the globe, whereas, somewhat ironically, until before the Hamas’ hideous attack, Israel was heading toward a remarkable improvement of relation with many Arab countries. Was this trend the real cause behind the attack, after all?

 -I think we have to discuss these two issues separately – The increasing Antisemitism we witness mainly in Europe and even in the US didn’t start after October 7th, but it seems that the genie is out of the bottle, because the war and Israel’s response gave it some kind of fake legitimacy. I solemnly believe that fighting Antisemitism is the responsibility of every government of which its country suffers of it. Just like any other pandemic.

When we discuss the Arab world, though our soldiers, who are fighting in Gaza, were shocked to find copies in Arabic of Hitler’s “Mein kampf”, and obviously there are classic elements adopted in the hate to Israel, it is still a different story.

I believe the positive trend hasn’t changed. Three decades ago, when we looked at the Middle East, we used to see Israel on one side and the rest of the Arab world on the opposite side. Today it is not the case, the map has changed, and you have the moderates on one side, and the extremists, who support terror, on the other side. Those regimes that support terror don’t prosper, while those who wish to progress, who are interested to grow their economies and march their countries to the 21st century, understand they better do so with Israel as a friend, and not as an enemy. Those regimes also act against terror. We saw how UAE condemned Hamas. We also saw Egypt and Saudi Arabia distanced themselves from the massacre of October.

We understand it is not likely that cooperation initiatives will continue during the war, but I am quite optimistic about the future.

-Madame Ambassador, you have been in Tirana for less than two years. Did you have the chance to travel around the country; how do you find Albania? What would you like to be improved?

-This issue can be a topic for a whole different interview I assume. During the past 16 months I traveled almost all over the country and met a lot of people. To summarize my experience in Tirana, so far, I would say the following:

I see Albania as a young country. I know you have a very long and rich history, but obviously, you had to start from scratch in many senses since the nineties. And there are many challenges on the way: building updated institutions and infrastructure, improving the trust of the civilians in the state systems, making Albania attractive to the younger generations to stop the brain drain and to attract back those who left, etc.

And all the above while paving your way slowly but surely to integration with the EU.

To my impression, Albania is a beautiful country, the people are kind, the food is great, the weather is welcoming and I am working together with your ministry of tourism to expose this touristic jewel to the Israeli audiences.

From my experience, in terms of tourism Albania can fill all the boxes the Israeli tourist is after.

But I also think that your country has much more to offer to Israelis beyond tourism, like cooperation in business, technology, medicine, academic studies and more. The way I see it, in terms of potential investments and business, high quality of skilled employees and positive attitude towards Israel, Albania is a great partner.

Moreover, as the Ambassador of Israel I convey my impressions to Jerusalem all the time – Albania is small country that knows to position itself in important junctions and to stick out as a courageous and a self-aware country. It is a great friend and it’s one of the very few countries in Europe with zero Antisemitism.  Therefore, I believe that our bilateral relations can only go in one direction which is closer and better.