EU chief diplomat will suspend dialogue with Israel

In response to Russian warfare in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell will suspend regular political dialogue with Israel. He will make this proposal to the member states of the European Union at the meeting of foreign ministers next Monday, the German Press Agency learned from EU officials in Brussels. Background reports are from independent international organizations that suggest that Israel is violating human rights and international humanitarian law. However, it is unlikely that Borrell’s proposal will receive the necessary unanimous approval.

The EU’s political dialogue with Israel is regulated by a so-called association agreement from 2000. Among other things, it provides for regular exchanges to strengthen relationships and further develop the partnership. It also states that relations between the contracting parties are based on respect for human rights and the principles of democracy. However, diplomats emphasize that the institutional political dialogue should not be suspended, the so-called Association Agreement or the Association Council should be suspended.

Borrell had already announced in October that he would hold a debate about Israel’s way of waging war in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon at the next meeting of foreign ministers. As the Spaniard’s employees explained at the time, consequences could then be drawn immediately from a unanimous assessment to the detriment of Israel. Spain and Ireland had suggested months ago that the partnership agreement between the EU and Israel should be put to the test. In addition to dialogue, it also deals with economic cooperation in areas such as industry, energy, transport and tourism.

It is unlikely that Borrell’s proposal to suspend the dialogue will receive the necessary unanimous approval because countries such as Hungary and the Czech Republic have so far clearly been on Israel’s side. It was initially unclear how the federal government would position itself. In recent months, representatives have repeatedly expressed criticism of proposals for punitive measures, saying that communication channels need to be kept open.

Meanwhile, the bloodshed continues in Israel’s war with the Islamists Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. The armed forces said they destroyed a Hamas rocket launch pad in the humanitarian zone in the southern Gaza Strip. It was targeted at Israel and posed a direct threat to civil society, they said. Explosions after the attack suggest that large quantities of ammunition were stored in the area of ​​the launch pad, according to the military chief’s assessment. The armed forces accused Hamas of using the humanitarian zone and civilian buildings for its terrorist activities.

According to the Israeli army, six soldiers were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon. They died in a shootout with four Hezbollah terrorists in a building, several Israeli media reported, citing an initial investigation by the armed forces. Accordingly, another soldier was injured in the incident. According to the military, those killed were between 19 and 22 years old. An army memorial page put the total number of soldiers killed in Gaza and Lebanon since the start of the war at 792.

The current conflict between Israel and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah began more than a year ago with rocket attacks by the Lebanese militia in support of Hamas, which was under fire in the Gaza Strip. This was triggered by the massacre by Hamas and other terrorists on October 7, 2023 in Israel, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 250 others were kidnapped as hostages to Gaza. On the Palestinian side, tens of thousands of people were killed in the war, most of them civilians. The exact figures cannot be objectively verified independently.

Meanwhile, according to the army, Israel’s air force attacked routes in Syria for smuggling weapons to Hezbollah. Israel’s military language of Syrian government smuggling routes. According to human rights activists, 15 people were injured in the airstrikes near the city of Homs, including members of the Syrian army. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told the German Press Agency that Israel was trying to “block any possible route that Hezbollah could use to transport weapons or military personnel.”