Norway on Friday condemned Israel’s “unacceptable” siege of Gaza after the Hamas militant group’s bloody attack on Israel.
“Israel is entitled to defend itself … but it cannot use all possible means,” Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt told public radio NRK.
“I condemn this siege because you have to, when they ask so many people to leave, when they don’t have access to food and medicine,” she added.
The bloodiest attack on Israel since its founding in 1948 took place on Saturday, October 7, when gunmen from Hamas massacred more than 1,200 people there while also taking roughly 150 hostages.
In retaliation, Israel bombarded Gaza with air and artillery assaults, causing more than 400,000 Palestinians to flee the congested territory and killing more than 1,400 people.
Following the attack by Hamas, Israel imposed a complete embargo on the Gaza Strip, cutting off its access to food, water, and electricity. The region had already been under a land, air, and sea blockade since 2006.
On Friday, Israel’s army called for all Gaza City residents around 1.1 million people to evacuate their homes and head south of the territory within 24 hours.
“The establishment of a full blockade, including on access to electricity, water, food, and other goods that are indispensable for the survival of the civilian population in Gaza, is unacceptable,” Huitfeldt said in a statement late Thursday.
The Scandinavian country has condemned the Hamas attack.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store broke with the country’s tradition of following the UN’s list of terrorist organisations — which does not include Hamas — when he called the movement a “terrorist organisation”.
“An organisation that planned, carried out and claimed responsibility for such terrorist acts must be considered a terrorist organisation. Period,” he told parliament.
