A group of anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protesters surrounded the building where Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar was holding a press conference for about 80 journalists in Japan on Wednesday morning, with some trying to break in, Sa’ar’s office reported.
At the conference, Sa’ar said Israel won’t accept threats from Iran and its regional proxies, and predicted the expansion of the Abraham Accords normalization agreements when the war in Gaza ends.
In a photo shared by Sa’ar’s spokesperson, one protester was seen holding a sign with the foreign minister’s face on it, labeled “war criminal” in both English and Japanese.
Security personnel were also shown removing a protester who was shouting “genocide” while inside the building, in footage shared by Sa’ar’s office.
Posting about the demonstration to his X social media account, Sa’ar wrote, “They didn’t succeed in silencing us today, and they won’t succeed in the future. The truth will win!”
Israel has been waging a massive military campaign against Hamas in Gaza since the terror group’s devastating invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw 251 abducted as hostages to the Strip. Israel sent a delegation to Doha this week for final attempts at a hostage-ceasefire release deal with the terror group before moving forward with an expanded ground invasion in the enclave.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 50,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel insists it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
As he spoke at the press conference, Sa’ar was informed of a Houthi missile attack on Israel, the third such assault from the Iran-backed Yemen rebels within 24 hours.
“Millions of Israelis are now running to shelters, and this is happening as all the children are going to school or kindergartens,” he said. “This is daily life under these attacks. I believe this is a war crime. They are aiming at civilians.”
The Houthis have fired dozens of missiles and drones at Israel during the war in support of Gaza.
“Since October 7, Israel has been attacked by the evil axis of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Shia militias in Iraq,” Sa’ar said in a transcript of the meeting shared by his office. “We were attacked on seven fronts and we didn’t initiate on any of these fronts… we retaliated to the attacks.”
“Israel aspires to expand the Abraham Accords and circle of peace and normalization in the Middle East. And we will do it when this war is over! But we cannot accept the ongoing threats to our security,” he added, referring to treaties signed during the first Trump administration that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries.
“Iran must be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons. The international community must take firm action to make sure of this,” Sa’ar continued and added, “We thank Japan for its consistent and responsible approach in the International Atomic Energy Agency.”
Sa’r also thanked US President Donald Trump “for helping to secure the release of our soldier and dual Israeli-American citizen Edan Alexander” from Hamas captivity on Monday, in a deal struck between the US and Hamas, without Israel.
Sa’ar later met with Yoshimasa Hayashi, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary.
He told Hayashi that Israel and Japan both have “painful experience of hostages,” an apparent reference to a period of North Korean abductions from 1977 to 1983.
“We appreciate the calls by Japan for the immediate release of our hostages,” Sa’ar said.
During their meeting, the two men spoke about bilateral ties and the situation in the Middle East. Sa’ar thanked Hayashi for Japan’s support for Israel and condemnation of the October 7 attack.
Sa’ar arrived in Japan on Tuesday on a first official visit to the G7 country by an Israeli foreign minister in 15 years, the Foreign Ministry announced at the time.
On Tuesday, he told Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya that Israel’s delegation to Doha this week will try “to reach a framework for the release of hostages, as we had sought from the beginning — based on the Witkoff framework,” a proposal attributed to US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.
“It is impossible to continue living alongside Hamas’s terror state… They continue to hold our hostages in order to dictate conditions that would allow them to continue their war against Israel,” he said.
Witkoff also called on Japan to reject any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, saying, “Unilateral steps against Israel will require an Israeli response. This would corner Israel. I call on Japan to reject such ideas, which would only push peace further away.”
Iran, “like Hamas… hold a fanatical religious ideology… After what they’ve already done… without nuclear weapons, one can only imagine what they would do if, God forbid, they got them. This must not be allowed,” Sa’ar told Iwaya.
During his three-day visit, Sa’ar was also to meet with other top Japanese officials and members of the Japan-Israel Parliamentary friendship group, the Foreign Ministry said.
In October, Iwaya “unequivocally condemned” the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel but said he was “gravely concerned” by the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip one year into the ongoing conflict.
The foreign minister is expected to return to Israel on Thursday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Tokyo on May 12, 2014, in the last major diplomatic visit to Japan by an Israeli official.