Lemmy.World

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said “it may be just and moral” to starve 2 million Gaza residents until Israeli hostages are returned, but “no one in the world would let us.”

In a speech on Monday at the Katif Conference for National Responsibility in the town of Yad Binyamin, the far-right minister said Israel should take control of distributing aid inside Gaza and claimed that Hamas was in control of distribution channels within the strip.

“It is impossible in today’s global reality to wage war – no one in the world would let us starve and thirst two million citizens, even though it may be just and moral until they return our hostages,” he said, adding that if Israel controlled aid distribution instead of Hamas, the war would have ended by now and the hostages would have returned.

“You cannot fight Hamas with one hand and give them aid with the other. It’s his (Hamas’) money, it’s his fuel, it’s his civilian control of the Gaza Strip. It just doesn’t work,” he said.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18358694