Hamas slams German minister’s claim about Israel’s right to bomb civilians in Gaza

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement has condemned in the “strongest terms” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock for her “abhorrent” defence of Israel’s bombing of Palestinian displacement camps in Gaza. Baerbock said earlier this week that Israel has the right to target civilians in Gaza “in self-defence”.

In a statement on Wednesday, Hamas said that her claim gives cover to the Israeli occupation regime to commit more crimes of genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and constitutes a blatant violation of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention of Genocide. It was also, said the movement, an explicit admission of Berlin’s complicity in supporting the occupation state in its ongoing aggression.

“We express our utmost disapproval of this statement, which reveals a Zionist mentality devoid of all human values and principles, and exposes the German support and complicity in the crimes of starvation, thirst and genocide against our people in the Gaza Strip,” said Hamas. “The German government bears full responsibility for the serious consequences and political, legal, moral and humanitarian repercussions of these crimes.”

The movement called on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to consider the German minister’s statement as additional evidence of her government’s complicity in the genocide. It also demanded that the court retract its rejection of the lawsuit filed by Nicaragua against Germany, on charges of violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention of Genocide by supplying Israel with weapons that it has been using in its ongoing aggression against the Gaza Strip since October last year, and to immediately begin taking emergency measures to force Germany to stop its arms exports to Tel Aviv.

READ: UN official denounces Germany’s defence of Israel’s bombing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza