Brussels – Three days after the UN stance, the EU also rejects Israel’s plan to take over the distribution of humanitarian aid to Gaza. And it “reiterates its urgent appeal” to Tel Aviv “to immediately lift the blockade of Gaza.” Going further is the government of the Netherlands, one of the Jewish state’s staunchest supporters to date, which has called for an urgent review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement in light of “clear violations of humanitarian law.”
In the joint statement signed by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, and the EU Commissioners for Crisis Management, Hadja Lahbib, and for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Suica, there is nothing about the disturbing plan for the prolonged occupation of Gaza announced by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Brussels chooses to remain silent on a development that could undermine once and for all the two-state solution that the Union has always advocated. Instead, the head of European diplomacy joins international organisations in denouncing Israel’s militarisation of humanitarian aid.
For more than two months, since March 2, before the ceasefire collapsed, Tel Aviv has been blocking the entry of food and primary resources for the civilian population in the Strip. The World Food Program and UNRWA have sounded the alarm about the imminent depletion of food supplies. According to the UN Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs, 92 per cent of children between 6 and 23 months and pregnant and lactating women are not meeting their nutritional needs. More than nine out of 10. Most households lack clean water, and looting of warehouses has resumed. Supplies remain stacked outside Gaza, blocked by the Israeli army.
“Tons of aid, representing three months’ supplies for a population of 2.2 million people, are waiting at the border,” the Brussels statement stressed. Israel, “as an occupying power,” must “ensure that humanitarian aid reaches the population in need.” But the plan Israel submitted to the United Nations to outsource distribution to private security companies and limit it to an area in the south under Israeli army control goes in a different direction. The EU says it is “concerned” about the mechanism concocted by Tel Aviv, “contrary to humanitarian principles.”
Kallas, Lahbib, and Suica reiterate that “humanitarian aid must never be politicised or militarised” and that its use “as an instrument of war” is prohibited by international law. Surprisingly, as the three commissioners cautiously drafted a communiqué circulated with marked delay, the Netherlands, one of the member countries hitherto most reluctant to criticise Israel, addressed a letter to the High Representative calling for an urgent review of the Association Agreement with the Middle Eastern ally. The agreement forms the basis of economic relations with Israel and requires, in Article 2, respect for democratic principles and human rights.
The Dutch foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, has declared to The Guardian that the Dutch government expects the issue, put on the table by Spain and Ireland more than a year ago and then set aside by the EU, to be discussed at the informal meeting of EU foreign ministers that begins today in Poland. Veldkamp, former ambassador to Israel, called the blockade of Gaza “catastrophic, truly desolate” and in clear violation of international humanitarian law. In a significant passage, the minister pointed out, “I have no illusions that Hamas will ever apply international humanitarian law, but from a democracy like Israel, democracies fight differently, and Israel must respect international humanitarian law.” The Netherlands appears to be serious, and Veldkamp announced that the government will veto any extension of the EU-Israel Action Plan, the agreement that implements the Association Agreement that came into force in 2000.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
