Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich faced a storm of international condemnation this week after he suggested that causing the starvation of Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians “might be just and moral” until the hostages held by Hamas are released.
It is unclear why the far-right minister’s remarks to a conference in support of Jewish settlements on Monday were not reported sooner.
He told the event that Israel had no choice but to send humanitarian aid into Gaza. “It’s not possible in today’s global reality to manage a war — no one will allow us to starve two million people, even though that might be just and moral until they return the hostages,” Smotrich asserted.
European leaders, but not U.S. leaders, have condemned the remarks. “There can be no justification for Minister Smotrich’s remarks,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said yesterday.
Posting on the X social media platform, Lammy said: “We expect the wider Israeli government to retract and condemn them.”
The day before, the European Union also condemned the remarks, noting that the “deliberate starvation of civilians is a war crime.”
German ambassador to Israel Steffen Siebert called the comments “unacceptable and appalling.”
However, none of Mr. Smotrich’s European critics went on to suggest that their governments would do anything concrete to rein in Israeli military aggression, which has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, as well as killing nearly 40,000 Palestinians and devastating the coastal enclave.
In a separate development, Israel’s Supreme Court considered a petition on Wednesday to shut down a military prison where soldiers have been accused of abusing inmates.
Human rights groups have been engaged in a legal battle since June to shut down the Sde Teiman detention facility, where Israel has held many Palestinians detained in Gaza.
Drawing on testimony from released detainees and Israeli whistleblowers, the groups say that conditions at the facility are grave and that abuse by Israeli soldiers is common.
Calls for the prison’s closure increased in late July when Israeli military police arrested 10 soldiers from Sde Teiman on suspicion of involvement in an alleged sexual assault on a Palestinian detainee. Five of them are no longer under investigation.
A physician who identified himself as the person who reported the attack said last week that the detainee appeared to have been seriously sexually abused.
The soldiers’ detention triggered angry protests by supporters and at least two ministers demanded their release.
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