{"id":19017,"date":"2024-03-13T06:24:30","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T06:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/?p=19017"},"modified":"2024-03-13T06:24:58","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T06:24:58","slug":"israel-using-starvation-as-weapon-of-war-says-eu-foreign-policy-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/2024\/03\/israel-using-starvation-as-weapon-of-war-says-eu-foreign-policy-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel using starvation as \u2018weapon of war\u2019, says EU foreign policy chief"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 16px\">MONITORING (SW) &#8211; Josep Borrell, the EU\u2019s foreign policy chief, has said the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is \u201cnot a natural disaster\u201d and has accused Israel of using starvation as a \u201cweapon of war\u201d.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"card-live__content\">\n<div class=\"wysiwyg-content\">\n<div id=\"wysiwyg\" class=\"wysiwyg wysiwyg--all-content css-1kw180w\">\n<p>\u201cThis is a man-made crisis,\u201d Borrell told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen 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 \u2013 artificially closed \u2013 and starvation is being used as a war arm.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I have condemned the 7\/10 terrorist attacks and stated Israel\u2019s right to defend itself, but in full respect of IHL.<\/p>\n<p>The situation in Gaza is tragic: a population is fighting for its survival. <\/p>\n<p>Humanitarian assistance needs to urgently get in. The EU is working on it.<\/p>\n<p>2\/4<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JosepBorrellF\/status\/1767574176238305768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 12, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe situation in Gaza is unbearable,\u201d said Borrell. \u201cThe very survival of the Palestinian population is at stake. It is a wide-scale destruction. Everything that makes society has been destroyed, systematically.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/2475731\/amp\">Arab News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t want to teach any one of you about what is happening in Gaza,\u201d Borrell told council members. \u201cWhen 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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: \u201cI am representing the European Union as a whole. And sometime (this) is difficult because there are different sensitivities and different positions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In light of the escalating humanitarian crisis during the war in Gaza, EU members Ireland and Spain have asked the European Commission to \u201cundertake an urgent review\u201d of the cooperation agreement between the EU and Israel, which regulates trade relations and is bound by the condition that human rights are respected.<\/p>\n<p>Borrell told Arab News \u201can orientation debate on this important issue\u201d will take place on Monday during a meeting of the EU\u2019s Foreign Affairs Council.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe live in a very, very, very complex, difficult and challenging world,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cBut without the United Nations, the world will be still more challenging, more dangerous.<\/p>\n<p>Borrell described UN agencies, such as the Relief and Works Agency, the main mechanism for providing assistance to Palestinians, as the \u201clast lifelines\u201d for many people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-70e93c8 elementor-section-content-middle elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"70e93c8\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-66 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-883b35d\" data-id=\"883b35d\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-b5cc917 elementor-widget elementor-widget-theme-post-title elementor-page-title elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"b5cc917\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"theme-post-title.default\">\n<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n<h3 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\">Ramadan \u2018will add to the tragedies\u2019 of Palestinians in <a href=\"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/2024\/03\/ramadan-will-add-to-the-tragedies-of-palestinians-in-gaza\/\">Gaza<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p>As Muslims across the world welcome Ramadan, the holy month is received differently by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<div id=\"wysiwyg\" class=\"wysiwyg wysiwyg--all-content css-1kw180w\">\n<h6><em><strong>ENDS<\/strong><\/em><\/h6>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MONITORING (SW) &#8211; Josep Borrell, the EU\u2019s foreign policy chief, has said the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is \u201cnot a natural disaster\u201d and has accused Israel of using starvation as a \u201cweapon of war\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":19033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[990,1,984,979,194,982,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-0_swnen","category-news","category-humanitarian-crisis","category-world","category-international","category-headline"],"views":54,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19034,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19017\/revisions\/19034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}