Israel's exploitation of African asylum seekers violates law of war: Hamas

Hamas has responded to the media reports about Israel recruiting African asylum seekers to fight its war on Gaza in the lure of permanent residency permits.

The Palestinian resistance group in a statement on Sunday on its Telegram channel said: "The terrorist occupation army recruiting African asylum seekers to fight in Gaza within its ranks, in exchange for facilitating their obtaining of residency permits, is confirmation of the depth of the moral crisis"

"The rogue entity is violating the most basic rules of human rights by exploiting the need of immigrants and asylum seekers to throw them into battles and trying to compensate for the great loss in the number of its army by our valiant resistance in Gaza."

Hamas called upon the international community to condemn such actions and hold Israel accountable for such serious violations.

"We call on the international community and international rights groups to condemn this crime that reflects the behaviour of racist gangs and to take the necessary measures to hold the criminal occupation leaders accountable for their serious violations of the laws of war and international and humanitarian law", Hamas said.

Earlier Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel is offering African asylum seekers who risk their lives in the Gaza war to get permanent residency in Israel.

There are presently over 30,000 African asylum seekers living in Israel, most of them are young males and according to media reports, Israeli defence authorities saw they could leverage the asylum seekers' desire for permanent status in Israel as an inducement.