“A serious risk of genocide” for the Palestinians: for Stanislas Guerini, the UN term is “not suitable”

Nearly a month after Hamas’ massive attack on Israel, the Israeli army announced that it had surrounded Gaza City after a week of ground fighting and deadly strikes on Palestinian territory. According to UN experts, including the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the Palestinian people “are at serious risk of genocide”.

“Israel has the right to defend itself”

For Stanislas Guerini, Minister of Transformation and Public Service, guest of La Grande interview Europe 1-CNews on Friday, the term “genocide does not seem appropriate”. “Israel has the right to defend itself. Israel has experienced the worst terrorist attacks from a terrorist group, Hamas, which came to its soil, that of a democracy, to kill, to exterminate with the intention of eliminating a part of the population because they were Jewish. Israel has the right to defend itself within the framework of international rules,” he said.

“We remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at serious risk of genocide,” write these independent experts mandated by the Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the UN, in the midst of the war between Israel and Hamas. . According to the United Nations definition, the “crime of genocide” refers to acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

“France’s position is respect for Israel’s right to defend itself within the framework of international law, humanitarian law. It is also not to confuse Hamas, which is a terrorist group, and the Palestinian people “, he added at the microphone of Europe 1-CNews.

“Civilian victims have the same value, whether Palestinian or Israeli”

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said Wednesday that Israel’s bombing of the Jabaliya Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip “may be war crimes.” “Attacking a camp sheltering civilians, including women and children, constitutes a total violation of the rules of proportionality and distinction between combatants and civilians,” declared the experts, who believe that the bombing of this camp on a very narrow territory and very densely populated could have caused “hundreds of Palestinian deaths and injuries according to certain reports”.

For Stanislas Guerini, “civilian victims have the same value, whether Palestinian or Israeli. This is why France is committed precisely so that there is this humanitarian corridor, so that there is a truce humanitarian”.

Hamas’ unprecedented attacks have left more than 1,400 dead, most of them civilians, often brutally murdered, and more than 240 hostages held in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities. Israel immediately responded with intense and incessant artillery and aerial bombardments on the Gaza Strip. According to Hamas health authorities, they left more than 9,000 dead, including 3,760 children.