The government has condemned the Palestinian militant group Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians on Saturday that killed hundreds of people, as it raised its travel warning for the Middle Eastern country.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) also conveyed her condolences to those injured and killed, as well as the concern of Taiwanese for Israelis’ safety, Presidential Office spokeswoman Olivia Lin (林聿禪) said
As a democratic nation, Taiwan vehemently opposes all forms of terroristic threats and condemns attacks on civilians, Lin said.
Photo: AFP
Taiwan is committed to collaborating with like-minded nations to resist any manifestations of threats that jeopardize democracy and freedom, she added.
In a news release late on Saturday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “condemned the terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli civilians carried out by Hamas.”
Upon learning of the attacks, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Anthony Ho (賀忠義) immediately extended the nation’s condolences to Israeli Representative to Taiwan Maya Yaron, it said.
Lin yesterday said that Tsai has instructed the ministry and Taiwan’s representative office in Israel to gather information on the status of Taiwanese citizens in the area to ensure their safety.
Five tour groups in Israel, comprising 124 people from Taiwan, are safe, the Tourism Administration said.
One of the groups, with Lion Travel Service Co (雄獅旅行社), was to return to Taiwan yesterday, while a group with Yung Shin Travel Service Co (永信旅行社) is to cancel parts of its itinerary and return to Taiwan as soon as possible, the administration said in a statement, adding that the other three groups are in northern Israel and have not been affected.
It said that it is closely monitoring the situation and would offer assistance as needed.
Travel Quality Assurance Association (旅行業品保協會) spokesman Lee Chi-yuen (李奇嶽) said that local travel agencies are likely to suspend tour groups to Israel temporarily or alter their itineraries.
The Taipei-based association said that fewer than 10,000 Taiwanese travel to Israel in tour groups annually, making the country a relatively small tourist market due to the lack of direct flights and high travel costs.
The foreign ministry raised its travel alert for Israel to “yellow” following Saturday’s attack, advising people to reconsider any travel plans to Israel and pay special attention to their safety if travel is unavoidable.
Under the ministry’s four-color travel alert system, the lowest warning level is gray, followed by yellow, orange and red. The red alert advises people to refrain from traveling to the country or region in question.
In case of emergency when visiting Israel, Taiwanese are advised to call the nation’s representative office at 972-544-275-204 or the ministry’s Taipei headquarters’ toll free hotline at 886-800-085-095 to seek assistance, it added.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS