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

By Ahmed Asmar

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ANKARA (AA) – Palestine demanded an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for his call to starve two million people in the Gaza Strip to death.

“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 might be “justified and moral.”

The 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.

Last February, Amnesty International said that Israel was defying an ICJ ruling to prevent genocide by failing to allow adequate humanitarian aid to reach Gaza.

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

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.

Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 91,600 injured, according to local health authorities.

Over 10 months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the ICJ, which ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar