Germany and France on Wednesday condemned statements by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in which he deplored aid for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and described starvation as morally justified.
“These are completely unacceptable and outrageous statements by the Israeli Finance Minister. We reject them in the strongest possible terms,” said a spokesman for the Foreign Office in Berlin.
“It is an imperative of humanity and a basic principle of international humanitarian law that civilians must be protected in war and must have access to water and food,” the spokesman added.
According to Israeli media reports, Smotrich recently said it would be “justified and moral” to block aid supplies to Gaza until all hostages seized in the October 7 attacks are released.
Smotrich said such a blockade would be justified even if it entailed the starvation of “2 million civilians” in Gaza, but argued that the international community would not allow such a measure, the Times of Israel reported.
The French Foreign Ministry called on the Israeli government to “strongly condemn these unacceptable statements.”
“France stresses that the provision of humanitarian aid to 2 million civilians in an absolute emergency, in an area under blockade where access points are controlled by Israel, is an obligation under international humanitarian law, as the International Court of Justice has recalled,” the statement said.
The German Foreign Office spokesman also said the comments would be “followed very closely” by international rights courts in The Hague, where Israel has faced allegations of genocide.
Back in May, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said he was requesting arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
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