Israel’s Western Allies Slam Israeli Minister’s Remark That Gaza Starvation May Be Justified

 Displaced Palestinian children look on, as displaced Palestinians flee the eastern part of Khan Younis following an Israeli army evacuation order, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip August 8, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinian children look on, as displaced Palestinians flee the eastern part of Khan Younis following an Israeli army evacuation order, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip August 8, 2024. (Reuters)
TT

Israel’s Western Allies Slam Israeli Minister’s Remark That Gaza Starvation May Be Justified

 Displaced Palestinian children look on, as displaced Palestinians flee the eastern part of Khan Younis following an Israeli army evacuation order, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip August 8, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinian children look on, as displaced Palestinians flee the eastern part of Khan Younis following an Israeli army evacuation order, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip August 8, 2024. (Reuters)

Israel's Western allies have condemned remarks by the country's far-right finance minister who suggested that the starvation of Gaza's population of more than 2 million Palestinians "might be just and moral" until hostages captured in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel are returned home.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a speech on Monday 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 2 million people, even though that might be just and moral until they return the hostages," he said at a conference in support of Jewish settlements.

Smotrich, a key partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition, supports the reoccupation of Gaza, the rebuilding of Jewish settlements that were removed in 2005, and what he describes as the voluntary migration of large numbers of Palestinians out of the territory.

The European Union on Wednesday condemned his remarks, noting that the "deliberate starvation of civilians is a war crime."

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called the remarks "beyond ignominious," saying "it demonstrates, once again, his contempt for international law and for basic principles of humanity."

David Lammy, Britain's new foreign secretary, said "there can be no justification for Minister Smotrich’s remarks."

"We expect the wider Israeli government to retract and condemn them," he wrote on the social media platform X.

Germany's ambassador to Israel, Steffen Siebert, called the remarks "unacceptable and appalling."

"It is a principle of international law and of humanity to protect civilians in a war and to give them access to water and food," he wrote on X.

Egypt's foreign ministry on Thursday also condemned Smotrich's remarks, describing them as "shameful statements unacceptable in form and substance" and a violation of international humanitarian law. Such "irresponsible statements" create incitement against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the ministry added.

The ongoing war sparked by Hamas' attack has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian catastrophe. The vast majority of its population has been displaced within the blockaded territory, often multiple times, and hundreds of thousands are packed into squalid tent camps.

The leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, said in June that Gaza was at "high risk" of famine.

Aid organizations say efforts to deliver food and other assistance have been hindered by Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order. Israel says it allows unlimited humanitarian aid to enter and blames UN agencies for failing to promptly deliver it.

Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people in the surprise attack into Israel that triggered the war and took around 250 hostages. Some 110 hostages are still being held in Gaza, though Israel believes that about a third of them are dead. Most of the rest were released during a weeklong November cease-fire.

Israel's ongoing offensive has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, and has caused widespread devastation.



Lebanon Elects Army Chief as New President

The Lebanese Parliament building a day before a session to elect the Lebanese president, in Beirut, Lebanon, 08 January 2025. (EPA)
The Lebanese Parliament building a day before a session to elect the Lebanese president, in Beirut, Lebanon, 08 January 2025. (EPA)
TT

Lebanon Elects Army Chief as New President

The Lebanese Parliament building a day before a session to elect the Lebanese president, in Beirut, Lebanon, 08 January 2025. (EPA)
The Lebanese Parliament building a day before a session to elect the Lebanese president, in Beirut, Lebanon, 08 January 2025. (EPA)

Lebanon's parliament elected army chief Joseph Aoun head of state on Thursday, filling the vacant presidency with a general who enjoys US approval and showing the diminished sway of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group after its devastating war with Israel.
The outcome reflected shifts in the power balance in Lebanon and the wider Middle East, with Hezbollah badly pummelled from last year's war, and its Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad toppled in December.
The presidency, reserved for a Maronite Christian in Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing system, has been vacant since Michel Aoun's term ended in October 2022, with deeply divided factions unable to agree on a candidate able to win enough votes in the 128-seat parliament.
Aoun fell short of the 86 votes needed in a first round vote, but crossed the threshold with 99 votes in a second round, according to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, after lawmakers from Hezbollah and its Shiite ally the Amal Movement backed him.
Momentum built behind Aoun on Wednesday as Hezbollah's long preferred candidate, Suleiman Franjieh, withdrew and declared support for the army commander, and as French envoy shuttled around Beirut, urging his election in meetings with politicians, three Lebanese political sources said.
Aoun's election is a first step towards reviving government institutions in a country which has had neither a head of state nor a fully empowered cabinet since Aoun left office.
Lebanon, its economy still reeling from a devastating financial collapse in 2019, is in dire need of international support to rebuild from the war, which the World Bank estimates cost the country $8.5 billion.
Lebanon's system of government requires the new president to convene consultations with lawmakers to nominate a Sunni Muslim prime minister to form a new cabinet, a process that can often be protracted as factions barter over ministerial portfolios.
Aoun has a key role in shoring up a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel which was brokered by Washington and Paris in November. The terms require the Lebanese military to deploy into south Lebanon as Israeli troops and Hezbollah withdraw forces.
Aoun, 60, has been commander of the Lebanese army since 2017.