The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has hailed Belgian minister for scrutinizing Israeli demolition of Palestinian villages as what she called “wiping off the map.”

The statement came on Saturday after Belgium’s Minister for International Development, Caroline Gennez, said Palestinian communities are being obliterated by the regime in an interview with the Flemish daily De Morgen.

“In the occupied Palestinian territories, for example, the situation is becoming unsustainable. Entire villages are being wiped off the map by the Israelis. The periods of escalating violence are shorter than before, but more frequent and more intense,” Gennez said.

In response, Israel’s ambassador to Belgium, Idit Rosenzweig Abu, called the accusations “false and slanderous.”

Rosenzweig Abu also sent a protest letter to the Belgian Foreign Ministry and to Gennez over the comments.

The Belgian ambassador to Israel, Jean-Luc Bodson, was also summoned for reprimand.

Bodson “was summoned to the Foreign Ministry for reprimand and required to provide explanations,” Rosenzweig Abu wrote in a post published on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said that Israel’s “angry” reaction to Gennez’s remarks is rooted in its fear that “decades-long myths could be debunked.”

“Guinez’s remarks are completely consistent with the facts on the ground, which have been corroborated by several international reports,” Naim added.

The Hamas official also called on the international community to take immediate measures to stop Israeli violations and hold the regime’s authorities to account for their crimes against Palestinians, their land, and holy sites.

In a recent report for +972 Magazine, a news and opinion webzine, photojournalist Oren Ziv documented Israel’s cleansing of the vast West Bank region of nearly all Palestinians.

Ziv found that large areas between the cities of Ramallah and Ariha have been emptied of nearly all Palestinian residents following intensifying violence and land seizures by Israeli settlers, backed by the incumbent far-led administration led by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

More than 700,000 Israelis live in over 280 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

The international community views the settlements – hundreds of which have been built across the West Bank since 1967 – as illegal under international law and the Geneva Conventions due to their construction on the occupied territories.

The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.