Hamas chief accuses Israel of war crimes in Gaza

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh on Saturday accused Israel of committing war crimes and preventing humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip, as Israel pounds the blockaded territory with airstrikes.

“Israeli atrocities amount to war crimes,” he said in a letter addressed to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that was posted on the Palestinian group’s website.

Haniyeh also condemned the “barbaric Israeli siege imposed” on the Palestinian territory, charging that “the Israeli occupation is banning entry of humanitarian aid and medical supplies to the Gaza Strip”.

Humanitarian aid

He urged Guterres to pressure Israel into letting humanitarian aid enter into Gaza.

ALSO READ: Thousands flee north Gaza after Israel evacuation warning

Gunmen from the Islamist Hamas burst across the Gaza border with Israel on 7 October and shot dead more than 1 300 people, including civilians.

In response, Israel has mounted a withering campaign of air and artillery strikes on Gaza that has killed more than 2 200 people, including over 700 children.

Israel has also imposed a “complete siege” on the enclave, halting electricity, water and fuel supplies.

It says supplies will not be resumed until Hamas releases all of the estimated 150 captives its gunmen seized during the cross-border attack.

Around 2.4 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade since Hamas seized power in the coastal enclave in 2007.

Spanish PM warns Israel

Israel earlier warned Gaza residents to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip before an expected ground offensive.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned on Saturday that international law does not permit the kid of mass evacuation demanded by Israel in the Gaza Strip

“Israel has the right to defend itself but always within the limits of international humanitarian law, which does not authorise the evacuation of Palestinians from Gaza, as the United Nations says,” Sanchez said at a meeting of his Socialist Party in the southwestern city of Merida.

“We condemn, completely and without any hesitation, the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, and also the deaths of Israelis, and we demand the urgent release of all Israeli hostages and captives,” Sanchez had previously said.

ALSO READ: UN urges Israel to call off northern Gaza evacuation order

Sanchez lamented that the latest violence has caused “such anxiety and instability in the region and in the world,” and urged a solution involving the creation of a Palestinian state.

Sanchez heads up a coalition government within which leftist allies of his party have strongly criticised the scale of Tel Aviv’s response to the Hamas attack.

Catch up with the latest news from The Citizen on WhatsApp by following our channel. To join, click here.