Germany and France condemned comments by Israeli finance minister on Wednesday Bezalel Smotrich in which he deplored aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and described famine as morally justified.
“These are completely unacceptable and scandalous statements by the Israeli finance minister. We reject them in the strongest possible terms,” said a spokesman for the foreign ministry in Berlin.
“It is a requirement of humanity and a basic principle of international humanitarian law that civilians must be protected and have access to water and food in times of war,” the spokesperson said.
According to Israeli media reports, Smotrich recently said it would be “justified and moral” to block the delivery of aid to Gaza until all hostages arrested in the October 7 attacks are released.
According to Smotrich, such a blockade would be justified even if it led to the starvation of “2 million civilians” in Gaza. However, he 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 providing humanitarian aid to 2 million civilians in an absolute emergency, in an area that is blockaded and whose access points are under the control of Israel, is an obligation under international humanitarian law, as the International Court of Justice has stressed,” the statement said.
The German foreign ministry spokesman also said the comments would be monitored “very closely” by international human rights courts in The Hague, where Israel faces accusations of genocide.
In May, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said he had requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
