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Benjamin Netanyahu has lashed out at UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and other western leaders, accusing them of siding with Hamas and “buying into” the group’s propaganda.
In a video released on Thursday night, the Israeli prime minister blasted the UK, French and Canadian governments for demanding Israel end its offensive in Gaza and for considering recognising a Palestinian state, which he said would constitute the “ultimate prize” for Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack.
“I say to President [Emmanuel] Macron, Prime Minister [Mark] Carney and Prime Minister Starmer: when mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers thank you, you’re on the wrong side of justice. You’re on the wrong side of humanity and you’re on the wrong side of history,” Netanyahu said.
The three western leaders issued a joint letter on Monday warning that they would take “concrete actions” against Israel if it did not stop its new offensive and lift restrictions on aid entering Gaza.
A UN panel last week said nearly 500,000 Palestinians in Gaza were facing starvation if the humanitarian situation was not improved drastically. Under international pressure, Israel earlier this week began allowing a limited amount of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, after a nearly three-month siege of the war-torn enclave.
Starmer froze UK talks on a new trade deal with Israel on Tuesday and the EU said it would review its own association agreement with the country in a move backed by 17 of the bloc’s 27 member states.
London and Paris are also considering extending recognition of a Palestinian state, perhaps as part of an international conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict mooted to take place next month in New York.
Netanyahu in his comments claimed there was a link between a shooting attack in Washington on Wednesday, which killed Israeli embassy staff Yaron Lischinsky and Sara Milgrim, and “Hamas propaganda that says Israel is starving Palestinian children”.
“These and other leaders [like Starmer, Macron and Carney] have bought into” the propaganda, Netanyahu added. “The press repeats it. The mob believed it. And a young couple is brutally gunned down in Washington.”
Elias Rodriguez, who shouted a pro-Palestine chant following the attack, was charged on Thursday with two counts of first-degree murder, the murder of a foreign official and several firearms felonies, said Jeanine Pirro, the interim US attorney for Washington.
The Israeli military continued its new offensive in Gaza, launched over the weekend, against what it said were military compounds and weapons depots. Israel on Thursday also issued mass evacuation orders to much of northern Gaza, including the towns of Beit Lahia and Jabalia, and warned residents of the city of Deir al-Balah, in the territory’s central region, over the presence of Hamas militants in the area.
Local health authorities in Gaza said 107 people had been killed over the past day in Israeli strikes.
According to Israeli military figures, a total of about 300 trucks of aid, including baby food, flour and medical equipment, have been allowed to enter the strip since Monday — an amount far below what UN and other international officials say is required to remedy a humanitarian crisis.
Only a fraction of the aid that has entered this week has been disbursed inside the territory, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Netanyahu, when announcing the easing of the blockade earlier this week, admitted the situation was nearing a critical “red line”. He said he was told by Israel’s “friends” across the world and in the US Congress that “we will not accept pictures of mass starvation . . . We won’t be able to support you” in the war effort.
But the veteran Israeli leader this week again rejected ending the war, and vowed once more to continue the offensive against Hamas until “total victory” was achieved despite the international pressure.
