Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell of helping Hamas by calling for Israel’s allies, primarily the United States, to halt or limit their flow of arms to the IDF as it battles to oust the Palestinian terror group from the Gaza Strip.
“Calls to limit Israel’s defense only strengthen Hamas. Rest assured, Israel is resolute in its mission to dismantle Hamas,” Katz wrote Tuesday in a post on X, above a story about Borrell’s statements.
“Israel adheres strictly to international laws of war, ensuring the safe movement of civilians in Gaza,” Katz explained in the post. “In stark contrast, Hamas prevents their safe passage. Our commitment to the lives of Gazan civilians is greater than Hamas’s.”
At a press conference in Brussels on Monday, Borrell said that countries who believe the Israeli army has killed too many Palestinian civilians in its military campaign against Hamas should put muscle behind that stance by halting or constraining arms sales to Israel.
“If the international community believes that this is a slaughter, that too many people are being killed, maybe they have to think about the provision of arms,” Borrell said.
“Let’s be logical: how many times have you heard the most prominent leaders and foreign ministers around the world saying, “Too many people are being killed?” Borrell asked.
Borrell criticizes Biden in particular
He pointed in particular to US President Joe Biden’s comments on Thursday that Israel’s actions in Gaza have been “over the top.”
“If you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide fewer arms to prevent so many people [from] being killed. Isn’t it logical?” Borrell asked.
One has to ask, “How many is too many? What is the standard?” he said. He pointed a finger of blame at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stating that “Netanyahu does not listen to anyone.”
He spoke less than a week after Biden issued a new security memorandum linking US military assistance with combat adherence to human rights.
COUNTRIES RECEIVING US military aid, such as Israel, now have to pledge not to violate international humanitarian law and to provide an annual report proving that they have lived up to that promise.
A Dutch court on Monday ordered the government to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns they were being used to violate international law during the war in Gaza.
In Washington on Tuesday, White House National Security Communications adviser John Kirby stressed that too many Palestinian civilians have been killed, but that Israel has been receptive to working to lower that fatality count.
“We have seen them take actions – sometimes actions that even I am not sure our own military would take in terms of informing civilians ahead of operations where to go and where not to go,” Kirby said. “Obviously those steps, while noteworthy, have not been enough to reduce civilian casualties.”
A Dutch court on Monday ordered the government to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns they were being used to violate international law during the war in Gaza.
The appeals court said the state had seven days to comply with the order, which echoed alarm across Europe and elsewhere over the humanitarian impact of the war. Israel denies committing abuses and says it is battling Hamas terrorists bent on its destruction.
“It is undeniable that there is a clear risk the exported F-35 parts are used in serious violations of international humanitarian law,” the court said, ruling in favor of a lawsuit against the Dutch state over the exports brought by rights groups including the Dutch arm of Oxfam.
The Dutch government said it would appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing that it should be up to the state to set foreign policy, not a court.
DUTCH TRADE Minister Geoffrey van Leeuwen said the fighter jets were crucial for Israel’s security and it was too early to say if a ban on exporting parts from his country would have any concrete impact on the overall supplies to Israel.
“We are part of a big consortium of countries that are also working together with Israel. We will talk to partners about how to deal with this,” he said.
Hamas has asserted that over 28,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, which was sparked when the terror group attacked Israel, killing over 1,200 people and seizing another 253 as hostages.
Netanyahu on ABC’s This Week said the death ratio in Gaza was “one-to-one.” That is, Palestinian civilians were accidentally killed for every Hamas combatant that was killed. It’s presumed that to arrive at this figure, he deducted around 30% of the fatalities, based on the argument that they were killed by failed rocket launches. It’s also presumed that some 11,000 of those killed were Hamas terrorists.
John Spencer of the US-based Modern War Institute defended Israel’s military campaign in an extensive post on X, in which he wrote, “There [are] no comparisons to what Israel has faced in Gaza.”
In addition, “comparisons do not show there is a way to defeat a dug-in enemy defender without destruction even while implementing all precautions and limits on the use of force required by the laws of war.”
Still, he attempted to provide some modern comparisons. In the “2017 Battle of Marawi (200k pop.), Philippines, it took 12,000 Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) 5 months to clear 900 to 1,000 ISIS fighters. Almost the entire city was destroyed. 95% of structures in East Marawi. City not inhabitable for years afterward.”
In “the 2016-17 Battle of Mosul, 100k Iraqi Forces (backed by the US) took nine months to clear the city of 3 [thousand] to 5,000 lightly armed ISIS,” Spencer wrote. “10 [thousand] to 11,000 civilian deaths, 138k houses destroyed or damaged & 58k damaged with 40k homes destroyed outright in just Western Mosul. Iraqi Security Forces suffered 10,000 casualties. Very limited shallow house-to-house tunnels, no tunnel networks, no hostages, no rockets.”