The European Union and several European countries strongly condemned the statement of the Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, in which he said, “the starvation of two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip may be just and moral.” In a statement, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said “we strongly condemn the recent statements made by the Israeli Finance Minister last Monday.” Borrell considered Smotrich’s statement “extremely shameful”. He stressed that “deliberately starving civilians is a war crime.” France, for its part, expressed its “deep dismay at the outrageous remarks” made by Smotrich.
A French Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement that “France calls on the Israeli government to condemn these unacceptable remarks in the strongest possible terms.” In London, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a post on the social media platform X: “There can be no justification for Minister Smotrich’s comments.” Lammy called on the Israeli go
vernment to “retract and condemn his statements,” adding that “deliberately starving civilians is a war crime.” For its part, the German Foreign Ministry condemned Smotrich’s statements.
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Berlin said, “the statements of the Israeli Finance Minister are unacceptable and completely outrageous. We reject them in the strongest terms.” The spokesman added, “it is a humanitarian duty and a basic principle of international humanitarian law that even in war, civilians must be protected and must have, for example, the right to access water and food.”
Source: Qatar News Agency