LUXEMBOURG: EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Monday that he believed the bloc’s leaders would back a call for a “humanitarian pause” to allow aid to enter Gaza.
European Union leaders are set to discuss the issue at a summit on Thursday after rifts emerged within the bloc over how to respond to Israel’s conflict with Hamas.
“I believe that the idea of a humanitarian pause to facilitate the arrival of humanitarian aid, which would allow displaced persons to find shelter, is something that the leaders will support,” Borrell said after talks with EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
Borrell said a pause would be a less ambitious objective than the “humanitarian ceasefire” called for by United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Despite Borrell’s assessment, a European official warned there was not yet a clear agreement among the 27 EU nations on issuing a call for a pause in the fighting. “We cannot say that there is clearly a consensus that has emerged,” the official said on condition of anonymity. The EU has long faced internal divisions over its policy with regards to Israel and the Palestinians.
It has struggled with conflicting messaging amid the surge in violence following the October 7 attack by Hamas and Israel’s reprisals.
There has been widespread condemnation of Hamas as well as calls for aid supplies to be stepped up to Gaza after initial deliveries were made. But while some nations are pushing for a halt of Israel’s campaign, others are far more cautious. Israel, and its key ally United States, have so far opposed any such calls.
“The degree of suffering — innocent civilians in Gaza are suffering — it’s not acceptable at all and in our view that’s why we believe a humanitarian pause is required to at a minimum get aid and supplies in,” Ireland’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said before the meeting. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, however, cast doubt on the feasibility of achieving a temporary ceasefire with Hamas, the group in charge of Gaza. “There is a terrorist organisation controlling Gaza, sending rockets every day, that perpetrated a barbarous attack on Israel territory,” he said. “So the question is how such a ceasefire should be established. It needs to be established on both sides.”
Latvia’s Foreign Minister Krisjanis Karins said: “It’s not at all an easy situation. I think there is no black-and-white solution.” Germany’s top diplomat Annalena Baerbock said the “fight against terrorism, which has brought so much suffering to the people of Gaza, is essential”. “At the same time, everything must be done to alleviate the unbelievable suffering of the two million people in Gaza,” she said. “This is squaring the circle. But we must face this squaring of the circle together.”
Hamas in Gaza stormed across the border into Israel on October 7, launching a raid that killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians who were shot, mutilated or burnt to death on the first day, according to Israeli officials.
They also seized more than 200 hostages in the worst-ever attack in Israel’s history.