Providing aid and ‘wiping out’ Hamas not mutually exclusive goals: Holland
Global News
Health Minister Mark Holland said Hamas needs to be 'wiped out' as Canada joins the calls for a 'humanitarian pause' to get aid to Gaza.
A second Canadian cabinet member, Health Minister Mark Holland, is echoing comments from Defence Minister Bill Blair, who said on Tuesday that Hamas needs to be “eliminated.”
“I think bringing Hamas to justice and making sure that they are held to account for their actions and that we can work to wipe them out as a terrorist organization and the protection of innocent life are not incompatible concerns,” Holland told reporters on his way into Wednesday’s Liberal caucus meeting.
Holland stressed he does not see the need to “wipe them out” and provide humanitarian aid to Gaza as “mutually exclusive” goals.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday that Canada “absolutely supports” the call for a humanitarian pause in the fighting, in order to get foreign nationals out of Gaza and allow the unimpeded delivery of aid like food, water and medicine to the region.
Holland added that Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly is in the region working with partners on trying to come to diplomatic solutions to potentially facilitate this pause.
After the caucus meeting, Blair took questions to clarify what he meant by saying Hamas must be eliminated the day before.
“What I was saying is I was concerned about the terrorist threat that persists and that terrorist threat has to be dealt with,” Blair said.
“But that’s a very different situation than making sure that the people who are in a desperate situation, innocent civilians on both sides of the border, we have to make sure that humanitarian aid is available to them.”
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