HAMAS has warned Israel against attacking the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, after Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz yesterday indicated his support for bombing it.
Hamas called Katz’s remarks ‘a clear expression’ of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people after he called for the ‘Jenin camp to be treated the same as Gaza’ and urged the evacuation of civilians.
‘We warn against the criminal plans of the Zionist extremist government towards the occupied West Bank, which are revealed by the statements of the terrorist Katz,’ Hamas said.
Hamas also condemned statements by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir against the Palestinian people.
‘We affirm that these ongoing crimes, killings, terrorism, intimidation, and systematic sabotage practised by the Nazi enemy government and army in the cities and camps of the West Bank will not succeed in dissuading our free people, their valiant resistance, and their revolutionary youth from the choice of steadfastness on this land,’ Hamas said.
The European Union high representative for foreign affairs Josep Borrell called for sanctions to be imposed on Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, for ‘incitement to war crimes’.
Borrell’s call came after the two said aid to Gaza should be blocked and claimed that the starvation of two million people in the enclave is justified.
‘While the world pushes for a ceasefire in Gaza, Ben-Gvir calls for cutting fuel and aid to civilians. Like Smotrich’s sinister statements, this is an incitement to war crimes,’ Borrell said on X. ‘Sanctions must be on our EU agenda.’
He stressed the need to participate in good faith in the negotiations mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt in order to stop the war.
Ben-Gvir had reiterated his call for starving the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, expelling them from the enclave and reoccupying the Strip permanently.
In a press interview with the Maariv newspaper, Ben-Gvir demanded cutting off aid completely to Gaza, claiming that it would make Hamas surrender in just two weeks.
