MONITORING (SW) – Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has said the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is “not a natural disaster” and has accused Israel of using starvation as a “weapon of war”.
“This is a man-made crisis,” Borrell told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
“When we look for alternative ways of providing support by sea or by air, we have to remind that we have to do it because the natural way of providing support to roads is being closed – artificially closed – and starvation is being used as a war arm.”
I have condemned the 7/10 terrorist attacks and stated Israel’s right to defend itself, but in full respect of IHL.
The situation in Gaza is tragic: a population is fighting for its survival.
Humanitarian assistance needs to urgently get in. The EU is working on it.
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— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) March 12, 2024
More than 31,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed during the war in Gaza, and more than 100,000 injured. Many more bodies are believed to be buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed by the Israeli military onslaught.
“The situation in Gaza is unbearable,” said Borrell. “The very survival of the Palestinian population is at stake. It is a wide-scale destruction. Everything that makes society has been destroyed, systematically.”
As Israeli authorities continue to severely control and restrict deliveries of humanitarian aid that are allowed to enter Gaza, the territory is in the grip of a catastrophic-level food crisis. Senior UN officials have warned of the imminent threat of famine if urgent action is not taken to avert a humanitarian disaster. More than 25 Palestinians have already died of starvation, most of them children.
Given the difficulties of delivering aid by road, some foreign governments have resorted to airdrops in an attempt to ensure life-saving humanitarian supplies reach people in Gaza. A mechanism for the delivery of aid by sea is also being set up, according to Arab News.
“I don’t want to teach any one of you about what is happening in Gaza,” Borrell told council members. “When we look for alternative ways of providing support, by sea or by air, we have to remember that we have to do it because the natural way of providing support, through roads, is being closed, artificially closed, and starvation is being used as a war arm.”
Asked by Arab News to comment on whether some EU member states are enabling the war in Gaza, including Germany, which has increased approvals of arms exports to Israel almost tenfold since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, Borrell said: “I am representing the European Union as a whole. And sometime (this) is difficult because there are different sensitivities and different positions.
“And there are some members on stage who are completely reluctant to take any position that could represent the slightest criticism toward Israel, and others are very much pushing in order to get a ceasefire.”
In light of the escalating humanitarian crisis during the war in Gaza, EU members Ireland and Spain have asked the European Commission to “undertake an urgent review” of the cooperation agreement between the EU and Israel, which regulates trade relations and is bound by the condition that human rights are respected.
Borrell told Arab News “an orientation debate on this important issue” will take place on Monday during a meeting of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council.
Borrell was at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday to take part in a Security Council meeting on cooperation between the UN and the EU.
“We live in a very, very, very complex, difficult and challenging world,” he told reporters. “But without the United Nations, the world will be still more challenging, more dangerous.
Borrell described UN agencies, such as the Relief and Works Agency, the main mechanism for providing assistance to Palestinians, as the “last lifelines” for many people.
Ramadan ‘will add to the tragedies’ of Palestinians in Gaza
As Muslims across the world welcome Ramadan, the holy month is received differently by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
With at least 1.7 million people displaced, more than 31,000 killed, and famine in northern Gaza, families have little food or water to break their fasts with.
