Hamas Praises Canada, France, and the UK For Their Threat of Sanctions Against Israel

The governments of Canada, France, and the UK have jointly issued a condemnation of Israel for what they call its “wholly disproportionate” response to Hamas in Gaza, and for what they claim is an “illegal” siege of Gaza. They have threatened to impose sanctions on Israel unless it ends at once its new offensive in the Strip. Naturally, such an anti-Israel statement has won the enthusiastic endorsement of the terror group Hamas. More on the initial threat made to Israel, and on Hamas’ endorsement of it, can be found here: “Hamas lauds France, Canada, UK for statements against IDF In Gaza,” by Ohad Merlin, Jerusalem Post, May 20, 2025:

In a statement released on their media outlets, the terrorist group Hamas added: “we welcome the joint statement issued by the leaders of Britain, France, and Canada, rejecting the policy of siege and starvation pursued by the occupation government against our people in the Gaza Strip, and the Zionist plans aimed at genocide and displacement.”

The 11-week “siege ”of Gaza is over. It began on March 2, when there remained a three-month supply of such aid Gaza, so that Israel’s resumption of aid has begun before the warehouses in Gaza were emptied. Israel is now prepared to allow in hundreds of trucks full of aid — food, medicine, and other supplies — every day. On May 19, the first day when aid was resumed, Israel sent in nine trucks loaded with such aid, and on May 20, it sent in a hundred trucks. Israel is preparing, once a secure method of distribution is set up, so that both the IDF and private American contractors will be able to prevent Hamas from stealing the aid, to send in many hundreds more of such trucks carrying humanitarian aid each day.

Canada, France, and the UK appear to believe that Israel’s blockade of aid for Gaza was illegal under international law. It was not.

Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly allows a state to withhold humanitarian aid from an enemy combatant under certain conditions. To wit:

The obligation of a High Contracting Party to allow the free passage of the consignments [humanitarian aid] indicated in the preceding paragraph is subject to the condition that this Party is satisfied that there are no serious reasons for fearing:

(a)that the consignments may be diverted from their destination

(b) that the control may not be effective, or

(c) that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy through the substitution of the above-mentioned consignments for goods which would otherwise be provided or produced by the enemy or through the release of such material, services or facilities as would otherwise be required for the production of such goods.

Hamas does “divert aid from its [intended] destination.” Much of that aid is “diverted” from the people of Gaza to Hamas’ members. Until now, “control” of the distribution has been nearly nonexistent. Hamas does have a “definite advantage to accrue to it” when its fighters know they can take vast quantities of the aid for themselves and their families, which helps Hamas sustain its men, and even gain new recruits. And Hamas has been selling much of the aid it steals to the Gazans who were supposed to have received the aid for free.

In other words, all three of the permissible reasons for withholding humanitarian aid, as set out in Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, have been met.

The group [Hamas] further claimed: “This position is an important step toward restoring respect for the principles of international law, which the terrorist Netanyahu government has sought to undermine and overturn,” calling for “its urgent translation into effective practical steps that deter the occupation.”

The “principles of international law,” we have just seen enshrined in Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, allow for a blockade of humanitarian aid under certain conditions, all of which are met in the case of Gaza.

Finally, Hamas called on Arab and Islamic countries, the European Union, and “all other free nations of the world to take urgent action and adopt firm positions and concrete measures to halt the barbaric Zionist aggression, curb the ongoing crimes of the occupation, and work diligently to hold this rogue entity accountable.”

What “barbaric Zionist aggression”? Israel has not committed aggression; Israel has only responded to the aggression launched against its citizens on October 7, 2023, when 6,000 Hamas members smashed into Israel, and proceeded to rape, torture, mutilate, and murder 1,200 Israelis and kidnap another 251, who were taken back to Gaza. Israel is fighting a war it did not want and did not start; it has only one goal — to make sure that the terror group Hamas is dismantled to such an extent that it will never again control Gaza and threaten the people of Israel.

It is worth noting that Hamas hypocritically calls on “all other free nations of the world” to stand with it as the UK, France, and Canada have just done. Gaza, of course, is not “free,” but is held in thrall by Hamas, a terror group that rules Gaza with an iron fist, does not hold elections, tortures and murders those who oppose it, and steals for its own members much of the aid meant to be distributed to all Gazans. In addition, just four leaders of Hamas — Khaled Meshaal, Mousa Abu Marzouk, the late Ismail Haniyeh, and the late Yahya Sinwar — managed to steal between them the colossal sum of $14 billion from the aid money sent by foreign donors to Gaza. Hamas refers to the “crimes of the occupation,” but we all know that Gaza has not been occupied since 2005, when every last Israeli was pulled out of the Strip.

Yesterday, leaders of the three countries [UK, France, Canada] signed a joint statement calling on Israel to halt its military operations directed against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and immediately allow the entry of aid, claiming that the current Israeli pledge to bring in additional aid was “wholly inadequate.”…

It’s an extraordinary demand: these three Western countries are demanding that Israel stop fighting in Gaza at once, or else they will impose sanctions which would no doubt include an embargo on weapons sales to Israel. Were Israel to stop fighting now, it would leave the terrorists of Hamas in control of Gaza, able to declare victory because they were still standing when the guns fell silent, and to prepare for the next round of fighting against the “Zionist entity” that they intend to utterly destroy.

The three Western leaders also said they have always supported Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism, but described the current escalation as disproportionate….

How do they know the IDF’s escalation in Gaza is “disproportionate”? That is a judgement that can only be made by the military men involved. Has Israel sent in too many soldiers? What determines the “proportionate” number of soldiers to commit to the fight? Or how many tanks, or artillery pieces, or drones, or fighter jets? How exactly would France, the UK, and Canada react if a terrorist group were to have raped, tortured, mutilated, and murdered thousands of their citizens? Would they stop fighting the group before it was destroyed? Would they heed the “demands” made by other countries and call off their armies, just as they were close to destroying the terrorists? Of course not. But Israel is not to be allowed the freedom to wage a war for its survival as it sees fit.

The leaders expressed support for efforts led by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. They also reaffirmed their commitment to recognizing a Palestinian state as part of advancing a two-state solution.

The “two-state solution”— a creature of credulous fancy — died on October 7, 2023. Only a little more than one-quarter of Israel’s Jews now believe that a “two-state solution” is possible. And even fewer still believe such a state is desirable. For a “two-state solution” would undoubtedly require Israel to be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines. It would then have a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea. It would lose control of the Judean valley, so essential to its defenses against a possible Arab invasion from the east. They would be giving up Judea and Samaria; it was there, and not in Tel Aviv or Haifa, where over the past 3500 years Jewish history was made. The Israelis since October 7, 2023 have been given a lesson in the murderous hatred harbored by Hamas not just for Israel, but for all Jews. They have also taken note of the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to condemn the October 7 attack, and the PA’s continuing its “Pay-For-Slay” program that rewards past, and incentivizes future, terror attacks against Israel. The Israelis know now, overwhelmingly, that any “Palestinian state” would not bring “peace,” but merely create a base from which the Arabs would prepare for another attack on Israel. The only way to keep the peace between Israel and its neighbors is for the Jewish state to remain much stronger militarily. The deterrence that kept the peace between the West and the Soviet Union during the Cold War can similarly keep the peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. That is the only “solution” that makes sense.

The demand made collectively by Canada, France, and the UK for Israel to stop its new offensive in Gaza is outrageous, and will of course be rejected by Israel. It is morally unacceptable, and geopolitically unsound. The IDF will keep on keeping on, the aid trucks will flow in, that “famine that is always just about to happen” will still not happen, and Hamas will not be saved by the likes of Keir Starmer, Mark Carney, and Emmanuel Macron.