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Swiss Senate votes in favour of banning Hamas

Hamas fighters
New members of the Palestinian Hamas security forces take part in a graduation ceremony in Gaza City, March 30, 2017. Keystone / Mohammed Saber

Switzerland is moving towards a ban on Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules the Gaza Strip and carried out a major attack against Israel on Oct. 7.

On Tuesday, the Senate tacitly adopted a committee motion calling for the Islamist organisation to be classified as “terrorist”. The House of Representatives will also vote on a similar motion.

  + How easy is it for Switzerland to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation?

Switzerland must adopt a clear position in the wake of the brutal attacks by Hamas. The organisation challenges Israel’s right to exist, argued Swiss lawmaker Werner Salzmann on behalf of the committee. Through its attacks on Oct. 7, Hamas has completely discredited itself as an interlocutor.

Three weeks ago, the government already decided that Switzerland should pass a law banning Hamas. It is following the usual procedure. A draft must be presented to Parliament by the end of February 2024. On Oct. 11, the government decided to classify the movement as a terrorist organisation.

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here. 

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