Israel’s ambassador to Belgium said she was so shocked by the remarks that she thought it was a translation error.  . “It’s the first time I’ve heard that,’’  she said.

Israel’s ambassador to Belgium, Idit Rozenzweig-Abu,  said she was ‘’shocked’’ after hearing a Belgian member of the Belgiane Senate asserting that “there are rabbis in Israel who call for the rape of Palestinian women.”

The Senator, Nadia El Yousfi, who is a member of the Socialist party, made the comments during a hearing in a Senate committee on international affairs.

Speakers at the hearing on Monday on the situation in the Middle East were the Israeli ambassador, the delegate of the Palestinian Mission tot he European Union, a representative of UNWRA and a university professor.

During her speech, El Yousfi did not mince her words about the policy pursued by the Israeli government. On her Facebook page, she even spoke of “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing” and “state terrorism” underway in the Gaza Strip.

She also said: “I remind you that within the Israeli government, the far right is very present. There are calls for hatred, calls for the destruction of Gaza, all the calls to empty Gaza of its inhabitants. And one of the elements that also shocks me is that we have rabbis who are inspected on the spot, who call for the rape of Palestinian women and so on. I think it’s important to have all the facts so that we can be as objective as possible,”

In a reaction, Israel’s ambassador to Belgium said she was so shocked by the remarks that she thought it was a translation error.  . “It’s the first time I’ve heard that,’’ ” she explained. “I was so shocked that I thought it was a translation error,’’ said Idit Rozenzweig-Abu. ‘’But that’s exactly what she said.”

She added ; “During past discussions in Parliament and the Senate, I’ve had confrontations, difficult discussions, I’ve heard many defamatory accusations, but this is a new low blow”.

CCOJB, the coordination committee of Belgian Jewish organisations, said ”such statements by Senator Al Yousfi are the expression of a particularly hateful anti-Semitism that has no place in the Palace of Nation”. ”They are a disgrace to our democracy,” it said.

Over and above the criminal charges that such remarks may incur, Ms El Yousfi bears full political responsibility for them, gravely tarnishing her status as a representative of the Nation.

”The particularly unbearable nature of the remarks denounced takes on a truly abject dimension, in the context of the acts of femicide, rape, disembowelment, beheadings and other serious attacks on Israeli women, perpetrated on October 7 by Hamas terrorists,” the statement added.

”Such remarks are reminiscent of the dark rumors sometimes propagated attributing ritual crimes to Jews, or the making of matzoth, unleavened bread, from the blood of Christians.”

”In view of the seriousness of Ms El Yousfi’s remarks, we feel that the most severe measures against her are called for,” it said.