The United Nations demands that Tel Aviv investigate Smotrich’s statements about the extermination of two million Palestinians

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has called on Israel to investigate Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich after he said he approved of the starvation of two million people in Gaza.

“This direct and public statement amounts to incitement to commit other serious crimes,” UNHCR spokesman Jeremy Laurence told a news briefing in Geneva. “Such statements, especially by government officials, must stop immediately. They must be investigated and, if they are found to constitute a crime, prosecuted and punished .”

Lawrence stressed that starving civilians as a means of war is a war crime.

"The High Commissioner (Volker Türk) was shocked by Minister Smotrich's statements that allowing two million Palestinians in Gaza to die of hunger is justified and moral in order for our hostages to be returned. He condemns in the strongest terms these words, which also incite hatred against innocent civilians," he added. 

Smotrich said last Monday that preventing humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip is "justified and moral ," considering that if there had been a settlement in Gaza, the October 7 attack would not have occurred.

"We are bringing aid to the Strip because there is no other choice," Smotrich said at a conference in the central Israeli settlement of Yad Binyamin. "In the current world situation, we cannot conduct war. No one will allow us to cause two million civilians to starve to death, even if it is morally justified, in order to return our hostages."