The European Union's top diplomat Josep Borrell in a statement and a post on social media on Wednesday said that “deliberate starvation of civilians is a war crime," calling earlier statements by Smotrich "beyond ignominious."
"It demonstrates, once again, his contempt for international law and for basic principles of humanity," he added, according to PressTV.
On Monday, the far-right Israeli minister asserted that blocking humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip is both “justified and moral,” insisting that it should continue until the return of captives, “even if it causes two million civilians to die of hunger in Gaza.”
Borrell's remarks came after newly-leaked video footage exposed the appalling conditions of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, showing a group of Israeli forces sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee at Sde Teiman, a notorious detention center in the southern part of the 1948 occupied lands.
Prisoner advocacy groups also recently said that a Palestinian detainee from Gaza died of torture in Sde Teiman.
The United Nations has urged Israel to fully investigate allegations of abuse and torture of Palestinian detainees by Israeli soldiers at its prisons, including sexual abuse.
Recently, UN experts warned of the “intensified use of torture” in Israeli jails and detention centers against Palestinian prisoners held since October 2023, when the Gaza war began. They confirmed in a statement that the escalation in the use of torture by Israel against Palestinian detainees is a crime against humanity.
The experts also confirmed that they had received “documented information” about numerous cases of torture, sexual assault and rape, “under horrific inhumane conditions.”
The number of detainees in Israeli prisons has surpassed 9,900, according to Palestinian organizations specializing in prisoner affairs.
The report by the governmental Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoners' Club and the non-governmental al-Dameer Foundation for Human Rights said the number of prisoners in Israeli prisons at the beginning of August includes 3,432 administrative detainees, at least 250 children and 86 women -- 23 of whom are administrative detainees.
Administrative detention is Israeli military imprisonment without charge, which can last six months and is renewable.
This comes as Israel is facing growing international condemnation over the high number of civilian casualties and worsening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the Tel Aviv regime has so far killed at least 39,677 Palestinians, mostly women, and children, in Gaza, and injured 91,645 others since the Gaza war began in October.
SD/Press TV
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