Gaza War | Foreign Minister Valtonen: Four million additional aid to Gaza from Finland

Finland intends to deliver four million euros of aid to Gaza in addition to previous humanitarian and development contributions. The foreign minister spoke about it Elina Valtonen (kok) after the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

“Finland provides additional support to the Palestinian territories of four million as humanitarian aid through the International Committee of the Red Cross,” he says.

Valtonen also said that he had recently talked with his foreign minister colleagues from the Palestinian territories and Egypt.

Finland’s line has been to condemn Hamas’s attack on Israel, emphasize the urgent need for aid to Gaza, and state that Israel has the opportunity for self-defense within the limits of international and humanitarian law.

“Israel has been appealed to many times that it is necessary to act specifically not only within the framework of international law, but especially within the framework of international humanitarian law,” he says.

However, Valtonen did not in practice reveal at what point Finland could reconsider its Israel policy and how.

Valtonen says the situation is challenging because Hamas uses people as shields and hides in civilian facilities such as hospitals.

“This is completely against humanitarian law. And in fact, in a situation where it can be shown that such a civilian target has been harnessed for defensive combat or has been put to military use, then it is no longer a civilian target by law.”

There have been warnings about the growing plight of hospitals for a long time. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is managed by the extremist organization Hamas, for example, 30 people had already died in al-Shifa hospital due to a lack of fuel and that the largest hospital in Gaza would no longer be in operation after Saturday.

Among other things The BBC has reported Israel has denied that al-Shifa hospital ran out of electricity.

According to Valtonen, there was no new situation update on the situation of the hospital in question or the other hospitals in Gaza from the meeting of foreign ministers.

Although Finland’s line has been communicated many times, it has remained unclear what kind of consequences Israel could have for violating international law. This time, too, Valtonen is not signaling that Finland could at some point consider, based on the claims made about Israel’s military actions, a new Israel policy somehow concrete.

Among other things, Finland has done arms sales with Israel, and on Sunday Israel confirmed that it is about to deliver David’s link -missile system to Finland.

Valtonen said that Finland’s reference countries have also acquired defense material from Israel.

“Finland and the Finnish Defense Forces acquire the defense material that best suits our capabilities through strict bidding and, of course, from similar partners that are possible from the point of view of our reference groups.”