News - Middle East: Palestine has called upon the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant for extremist Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich who said starving two million civilians in Gaza is “justified and moral”.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement on Thursday that the remarks constitute “an explicit admission of adopting and bragging about the policy of genocide.”

The ministry called Smotrich’s comments “a flagrant violation of the rules of international law and principles of humanity, a blatant challenge to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and its precautionary orders, and a direct disregard for international legitimacy decisions and 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 and approving the policy of genocide.

The Palestinian foreign ministry also urged world countries to condemn Smotrich’s comments, boycott the extremist Israeli minister and prevent him from entering their territories.

“We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our captives are returned,” Smotrich said on Monday.

The far-right minister reiterated his opposition to any prisoner swap deal with Hamas, claiming that current ceasefire proposals are “unjust and unethical” as they would only return a few hostages and jeopardize Israel’s security.

Smotrich also expressed his opposition to releasing Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli captives, asserting that they would “return to kill Jews.”

He said Israel must regain full control over what exactly enters the Gaza Strip, asserting that he opposes the stance of the Israeli military and its minister Yoav Gallant on the matter.

“I don’t know if the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] doesn’t want or isn’t managing to rein them in,” Smotrich said.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory operation into the occupied territories.

Concomitantly with the war, the regime has been enforcing a near-total siege on the coastal territory, which has reduced the flow of foodstuffs, medicine, electricity, and water into the Palestinian territory into a trickle.

So far during the military onslaught, the regime has killed at least 39,699 Gazans, most of them women, children, and adolescents. Another 91,722 Palestinians have sustained injuries as well.

Source: Press TV