Published 19 January 2024 at 17.13
Foreign. Even Foreign Minister Tobias Billström (M) is now giving signals that he thinks Israel may have gone a little too far in its bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
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In the last three months, Israel has killed approximately 25,000 people, including over 10,000 children, in the Gaza Strip and is being investigated for genocide by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Sweden's Foreign Minister Tobias Billström has previously expressed almost total support for Israel and called the response against Gaza “proportionate”.
But the mass killing of civilians – according to the UN, 70 percent of those killed are women and children – and the extensive damage to civilian property have now caused Tobias Billström to sharpen the tone.
– It raises questions that both we and other states have begun to ask about whether humanitarian law has been complied with in this regard, he says in Ekot's Saturday interview.
Billström points out that the government “of course” is “on Israel's side regarding the State of Israel's right to exist”.
– There is no doubt about this and of course, this attack was the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. But when that is said, we also have to say in the next breath that this development of warfare raises questions that require answers, he says in the interview.
However, the Swedish foreign minister is careful to point out that in this does not deviate from the official US position on the matter. The US government has also expressed some reservations regarding Israel's handling of the civilian population.