Israel's Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, demanded on Monday that the UN Security Council “exert as much pressure as possible” on Palestinian Hamas militants to release people taken hostage during the September 7 attack. October against Israel.
Katz spoke to the 15-member council, which met to discuss a UN report that concluded there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, occurred in several locations during the Hamas attack on October 7.
“We are asking you to condemn the crimes of sexual violence that these barbarians committed in the name of the Muslim religion,” Katz told the Security Council, also asking that the body “exert as much pressure as possible on the Hamas organization to release immediately and unconditionally all kidnapped hostages.”
The minister called for sanctions to be imposed on Hamas, accusing the group of crimes “worse than the acts of terror carried out by al-Qaeda, Islamic State and other terrorist organizations” that were targets of the Security Council.
The Security Council called for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages in resolutions in November and December and is currently considering a US-drafted resolution that includes a condemnation of the Hamas attack on October 7, “as well as the seizure and death of hostages, murder of civilians and sexual violence, including rape.”
Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages on October 7, according to Israeli calculations. Israel retaliated with a military offensive in the Gaza Strip that killed more than 31,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities.
Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour accused Israel in the Security Council of seeking the “forced displacement of our people by making Gaza uninhabitable.”
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols)
Source: CNN Brasil
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