Israel must know there are limits to right to self-defence: Ex-Austrian president

Israel must know there are limits to its right to self-defence, a former Austrian president said on Monday, referring to Tel Aviv’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 24,000 Palestinians and reduced almost the entire enclave to rubble, Anadolu Agency reports.

“Israel naturally has the right to defend itself after Hamas’s gigantic and unforgivable crimes on 7 October, 2023, but there are also limits and international law that must be observed for  self-defence,” Heinz Fischer told the state-run Austria Press Agency.

“A Palestinian mother weeps for her killed child just as much as an Israeli mother weeps for hers. When I think about it, I think that the United Nations is right when it calls for compliance with international law and human rights. Especially when people, namely the civilian population, cannot flee the Gaza Strip,” he added.

Fischer said Austria voting against the UN resolution for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip in mid-December was a mistake.

“With its ‘no’, Austria voted together with Israel and the US, but differently from Germany, France, Great Britain, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the remaining EU states, with the exception of the Czech Republic. This caused a lot of astonishment and frowning, both in Austria and internationally,” he said.

The resolution was the result of the intensive efforts within the UN and contained many extremely important and correct demands, Fischer added.

Israel declared war on Hamas after the group’s 7 October cross-border offensive, believed to have killed 1,200 people and taking a further 240 hostage.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has, so far, killed more than 24,000 people, most of them women and children, and displaced 1.9 million of the enclave’s more than 2.2 million inhabitants. The attacks have also led to acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine.

WHO chief, Tedros Ghebreyesus,​​​​​​​ said on Sunday that “people in Gaza are living in hell” and “nowhere is safe.”

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