UN ‘shocked’ by Israel minister’s Gaza starvation comment

UN rights chief Volker Turk was “shocked and appalled” by comments by Israel’s finance minister suggesting it might be “justified” to starve the population of Gaza to free hostages, his spokesman said Friday.

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights “condemns these words in the strongest terms, which also incite hatred against innocent civilians,” his spokesman Jeremy Laurence told a press conference.

Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stoked controversy earlier this week, telling a conference: “No one in the world will allow us to starve two million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages.”

“We are bringing in humanitarian aid because we have no choice. We are in a situation that requires international legitimacy to conduct this war,” Smotrich said.

Turk’s spokesman told reporters that “the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime.

“This direct and public statement risks inciting other atrocity crimes. Such statements, especially by public officials, must cease immediately, they must be investigated and if found to amount to a crime, must be prosecuted and punished,” Laurence said.

The unprecedented October 7 Hamas attack that triggered the war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,699 people, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

Since the war in Gaza broke out, the humanitarian situation in the besieged Palestinian territory remains dire, with almost all of its 2.4 million population displaced and suffering from food shortages.