The European Union announces that it has issued sanctions against Hamas and two other Islamist militias. There had already been European sanctions against Hamas after the attack on Israel, but these additional measures concern the acts of sexual violence committed against Israeli women during the attacks of October 7, 2023.
1 min
With our correspondent in Brussels, Pierre Benazet
Three terrorist militias are targeted by these new European Union sanctions: the al-Quds brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, the Noukhba unit of Hamas, and the al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of Hamas again. The European Union formally accuses them of serious and widespread sexual violencesexual violence “ used as a weapon of war “.
This Friday, April 12, the official newspaper of theEuropean Union accuses, for example, the al-Qassam brigades of having committed rapes, murders of little girls and targeted kidnappings of women and girls in the kibbutz of Kfar Aza and Nahal Oz. For the Noukhba force, these are the same accusations, with the addition of genital mutilation and mutilation of corpses, as well as rape of minor women in Kfar Aza and at the Nova music festival in Re’im.
This decision is taken within the framework of the European Union’s human rights sanctions regime, which particularly covers crimes against humanity. During the last European summit, sanctions were also planned against Israeli settlers accused of violence in the West Bank. But the Europeans wanted to first introduce these new sanctions against Palestinian terrorist movements, so as not to give the impression of putting them on the same footing.
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