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Copyright © 2024 CGTN. 京ICP备20000184号
Disinformation report hotline: 010-85061466
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday that Israel had financed the creation of the Palestinian armed group Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been dogged by criticism that he has indulged Hamas' growth in moves such as allowing Qatari financing of Gaza.
Such accusations have increased sharply ever since Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel on October 7 in an attack that killed 1,400 people and saw the group capture around 240 hostages.
But Borrel's charge was new in suggesting that Israel played a role in funding the group's creation. Hamas came into existence in the late 1980s when a major Palestinian uprising, known as the First Intifada, broke out in the occupied territories and Israel.
"Yes, Hamas was financed by the government of Israel in an attempt to weaken the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah," Borrell said in a speech at the University of Valladolid in Spain without elaborating.
Hamas took over Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in 2007 after a brief civil war with forces loyal to the Fatah movement led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Borrell added that the only peaceful solution included the creation of a Palestinian state.
"We only believe a two-state solution imposed from the outside would bring peace even though Israel insists on the negative," he said.