Israel doesn’t want witnesses at crime scene: Deputy FM

LAHEY

Deputy Foreign Minister Nuh Yılmaz strongly criticized Israel during a hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing it of attempting to erase evidence and witnesses of alleged war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.

Speaking after the hearing on Israel’s obstruction of UNRWA activities, Yılmaz said, “Israel doesn’t want witnesses at the crime scene.”

Addressing reporters outside the court, Yılmaz argued that Israel continues to violate international law in occupied Palestinian territories. “There is a legal framework that governs occupation, and Israel is completely ignoring it,” he said. “Crime is being piled on top of crime.”

He claimed that the collapse of the international liberal order has emboldened Israel, leading to actions that he described as genocidal. “Israel is carrying out a genocide without regard for humanitarian or international law,” Yılmaz stated.

Yılmaz accused Israel of reviving 19th-century settler-colonial practices. “This is a desperate attempt to impose a colonial system long abandoned by the modern world,” he said. “The aim is to erase the native population and claim no one lived there.”

Highlighting the unprecedented scale of civilian casualties, Yılmaz said, “We are witnessing a genocide with a historically unmatched death toll among women and children. Hospitals, schools, aid centers—all are being destroyed. Starvation is being weaponized.”

He also emphasized the importance of UNRWA as both a provider of aid and a historical witness to Palestinian displacement. “UNRWA is itself a piece of evidence,” he said, accusing Israel of trying to dismantle it to erase this record.

“Israel blocks international organizations and the media because it doesn’t want witnesses,” Yılmaz said. “Our intervention today aimed to stop the erasure of both evidence and witnesses. We want the genocide recorded and exposed.”