Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said \u201cit may be just and moral\u201d to starve 2 million Gaza residents until Israeli hostages are returned, but \u201cno one in the world would let us.\u201d <\/p>\n
In a speech on Monday at the Katif Conference for National Responsibility in the town of Yad Binyamin, the far-right minister said Israel should take control of <\/strong>distributing aid inside Gaza and claimed that Hamas was in control of distribution channels within the strip. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is impossible in today\u2019s global reality to wage war \u2013 no one in the world would let us starve and thirst two million citizens, even though it may be just and moral until they return our hostages,\u201d he said, adding that if Israel controlled aid distribution instead of Hamas, the war would have ended by now and the hostages would have returned. <\/p>\n \u201cYou cannot fight Hamas with one hand and give them aid with the other. It\u2019s his (Hamas\u2019) money, it\u2019s his fuel, it\u2019s his civilian control of the Gaza Strip. It just doesn\u2019t work,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Israel has control over aid that enters Gaza and aid groups are in charge of distributing it. While there have been some anecdotal reports from Gazans of Hamas stealing aid, it\u2019s unclear how rampant it is. US Special Envoy David Satterfield said in February that no Israeli official had presented him or the Biden administration with \u201cspecific evidence of diversion or theft of assistance.\u201d <\/strong> <\/p>\n Israel is facing mounting criticism from aid groups and international organizations for restricting food aid to the besieged Gaza Strip. A United Nations statement, citing independent experts, indicated last month that famine has spread across the entire enclave. The experts accused Israel of conducting an \u201cintentional and targeted starvation campaign,\u201d which they termed a \u201cform of genocidal violence.\u201d <\/p>\n The International Criminal Court\u2019s prosecutor is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of \u201cstarvation as a weapon of war,\u201d among other allegations. <\/p>\n Netanyahu has strongly denied the allegations, saying they are based on a \u201cpack of lies.\u201d He has said that if Palestinians in Gaza aren\u2019t getting enough food, \u201cit\u2019s not because Israel is blocking it, it\u2019s because Hamas is stealing it.\u201d <\/p>\n Israel has stated that it will not end the war until all hostages are freed and Hamas is eliminated. The conflict began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli authorities. The war has resulted in the deaths of more than 39,000 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian authorities. <\/p>\n Smotrich on Monday advocated for Israeli control of the aid effort \u201cas a part or as an essential means of realizing the defined goals of the war,\u201d and said only minimal aid is needed in Gaza in the months and years to come. <\/p>\n \u201cNo one talks about (Israeli) military rule (of Gaza) now. No need to unclog sewers, no need for education, no need for welfare. Gaza in the next two years is (going to be) a war zone. You need food, some medicine and a minimum of sanitation \u2013 water, sewage. That\u2019s it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said \u201cit may be just and moral\u201d to starve 2 million Gaza residents until Israeli hostages are returned, but \u201cno one in the world would let us.\u201d In a speech on Monday at the Katif Conference for National Responsibility in the town of Yad Binyamin, the far-right minister said Israel <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}