Palestine demands ICC arrest warrant for Israel’s Smotrich over call to starve Gazans

 Palestine today demanded the International Criminal Court (ICC) issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich after he said starving Palestinians in Gaza was “justified and moral”.

“This is an explicit admission of adopting and bragging about the policy of genocide,” the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Smotrich said Monday that letting two million people in Gaza die from hunger is “justified and moral” but “nobody will let us cause two million civilians to die of hunger.”

The Palestinian ministry condemned the Israeli minister’s call as a “flagrant violation of the rules of international law and basic principles of humanity, a blatant challenge to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and a direct disregard for international legitimacy decisions and the international consensus on protecting civilians and securing their basic humanitarian needs.”

It called on the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for Smotrich for supporting the collective punishment of Palestinian civilians.

Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023, leaving the territory’s entire population on the verge of famine.

According to the Ministry of Health, several dozen children have died as a result of starvation since then, however the true number is expected to be much higher as many people are unable to reach the few operating medical facilities in the enclave and deaths are left unrecorded.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240808-palestine-demands-icc-arrest-warrant-for-israels-smotrich-over-call-to-starve-gazans/