France and Poland reject equating Israel and Hamas
France and Poland on Thursday criticized possible "equivalences" between Israel and Hamas following a request by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, including the prime minister, and the Palestinian Islamist group.
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Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has called "unacceptable" the comparison made "between the leaders of a terrorist organization and the Prime Minister of Israel", but admitted that "[Benjamin] Netanyahu's political evolution raises skepticism about what he is doing".
He also said that he does not consider himself a "fan" of the Israeli Prime Minister, since he has known him "for a long time", according to the newspaper 'Rzeczpospolita'.
"I could even say that, at the beginning of his first term, we were friends, or something like that, but his political evolution changed that. I think he is partly responsible for the crisis in the Middle East, not to mention domestic policy", considered the former president of the European Council.
However, Tusk stated that "trying to prove that the Israeli Prime Minister and the leaders of a terrorist organization like Hamas are the same thing (...) is absolutely unacceptable".
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan on Monday requested arrest warrants for those he considers to be most responsible for the Gaza war, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity, a request condemned by Hamas and Israel, after more than seven months of war in Gaza, which caused more than 35,500 deaths.
Khan requested the arrest of Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who have already reiterated that they do not accept the authority of the ICC, a judicial body of which Israel is not a part.
The prosecutor also requested the detention of Hamas chief in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, the group's political chief, Ismael Haniyeh, and Mohamed Deif, commander-in-chief of its armed wing, the Al Qasam Brigades.
On the other hand, French Foreign Minister Stéphane Sejourné called for "no equivalence to be established" between the simultaneous requests issued and which ultimately target both Hamas members and senior Israeli government officials.
Hamas is a "terrorist group that celebrated the October 7 attacks", which killed 1,200 people on Israeli soil. Israel, on the other hand, "is a democratic state that must respect international law when waging a war that it did not decide to start on its own", the French minister stressed, in a speech in Parliament.
In this sense, he stated that France "recognizes the independence of the ICC" and stated that "it is now up to the judges to decide whether or not to issue the arrest warrants in question".
"They will do so independently", he explained, before insisting that France shows its "solidarity with both the Israeli people and the Palestinian people", remaining "committed to achieving a peaceful solution to the conflict".
Earlier, Italy's foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, had considered the equation between Hamas and Israel unacceptable.
"It is absolutely unacceptable to equate Hamas and Israel, the leaders of the terrorist group that launched the war in Gaza by massacring innocent civilians and the leaders of the government elected by the Israeli people", Tajani said in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published today.
Read Also: ICC Decision? "The conclusions of the panel of experts were unanimous" (Portuguese version)
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