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Hamas: US military aid to Israel ‘green light’ for Gaza ‘aggression’
“This support, which violates international law, is a license and a green light for the Zionist extremist government (Israel) to continue the brutal aggression against our people,” Hamas said in a statement.
“We consider this step a confirmation of the official American complicity and partnership in the war of extermination waged by the fascist occupation army against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”
On Saturday, the US House of Representatives approved $13 billion in military assistance to America’s ally, Israel, in its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. Washington is already Israel’s largest military supplier.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the “much appreciated aid bill” showed strong support for Israel and “defends Western civilization”.
The Palestinian presidency condemned the bill as “an aggression against the Palestinian people” and a “dangerous escalation”.
The money would “translate into thousands of Palestinian casualties in the Gaza Strip” and the occupied West Bank, said Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “To continue arming Israel after an ICJ decision that finds that there is a possible risk of genocide and a United Nations Security Council resolution that calls for an immediate, sustained cease-fire ... from our opinion, risks complicity,” said Bushra Khalidi, West Bank policy lead for Oxfam.
Since October 7, the Israel war on Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians – most of them women and children. Israel carried out deadly strikes in Gaza overnight. The bodies of 13 people, mostly children, were recovered after an Israeli strike hit the home of a family near the southernmost Gaza city of Rafah, the agency said. Other people were believed to be under rubble.
A separate Israeli strike on a home in the Rafah area killed at least three people and wounded others, Civil Defense said. Resident Umm Hassan Kloub, 35, said her children screamed when they “woke up to a nightmare of an explosion”.
“Every second we live in terror, even the sound of Israeli aircraft doesn’t stop,” she said.
“We don’t know whether we will live or die. This is not life.”
Violence has also flared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where a two-year surge in clashes has further escalated since the war broke out. The Palestinian Red Crescent said Saturday that at least 14 people were killed during an Israeli raid on a refugee camp in the northern West Bank.
Separately, Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinian teenagers near the West Bank city of Al-Khalil, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Sunday, bringing to at least 483 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank since October 7, according to ministry data.
The Israeli army claimed the two people had attempted to stab and shoot troops near the village of Beit Einun.