Israel's siege of Gaza is illegal, EU says
"Cutting water, cutting electricity, cutting food to a mass of civilian people is against international law," said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in Muscat.
"Israel has a right to self-defence, but it has to be done within international law ... cutting water, cutting electricity, cutting food to a mass of civilian people is against international law," said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday (10 October).
He repeated the view more than once in his press briefing. "The Palestinian people are also suffering," he added.
An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. This cycle of violence and repression needs to stop.
It's not an eye for an eye though. Israeli atrocities over the decades dwarf what has been inflicted upon them by Palestine and Hamas.
That's the point. The game is to be the last man standing with at least partial vision.
It is a pretty clown face move to attach those that supply your water, electricity and fuel.
That's slave mentality, dude
Good luck stopping a millennia old feud
The UN and EU consider lots of things Israel does illegal. We just don't do anything about it and they don't care.
The UN condemns Israel as a pastime activity. Nobody in Israel cares what they say at this point.
Because they are the West’s military outpost in the Middle East A
I guess sanctions only make sense when Israel is out of the picture.
Obviously illegal. Collective punishment is a war crime and makes Israel a monster. Imagine if there was a murderer in your building and the feds blew the entire building up.
Israel is willingly lead by a monster.
"The only democracy in the Middle East"
Didn't you just describe Putin's warm up run in the late ninties?
Remember when they did this?
Real Qinshi HuangDi legalism energy
As is punishing all Russian passport holders for the action of the government. So it's either both EU and Israel are monsters or neither is.
As a punished Russian living in Lomonosov, let me explain you what has changed for us since this "punishment" started:
Absolutely nothing.
(Oh, yes, Coke bottles are now green, instead of red.)
This is not valid in all cases as I know multiple Russians and those living in EU continue to do so with no issue and those living in RU say it doesn't affect them. You can even find interview with random RU citizens in RU and they all say it doesn't affect them or that they want to attack UA BC Nato boarder is too close.
Oh I love allegories. Let me try.
Imagine there was a murderer in your building. But he is not really interested in murdering you, he keeps shooting at some other people you also hate. The feds have tried to go into the building to extract the murderer, but his friends and you lynched the feds when they tried. The murderer has stockpiled his guns in the building and the feds figure that if they can't get to the murderer at least they can destroy his guns and vantage point from which he is firing at people. They don't really want to destroy the building but the murderer is actively trying to kill people and the people he is trying to kill demands action.
You receive a text message that the building you are in will be destroyed shortly. You want to leave, but now the murderer says he will kill you if you do.
It is a very silly thing to think that having a "civilian" stay in a legitimate military target ( rocket launcher and or rocket storage ) makes it a place that is untouchable!
Well, no shit. And nothing will be done about it.
Not directed at OP
Israel's actions are a direct consequence of what Hamas did," Borrell's spokesman had said in Brussels earlier the same day.
Uhh, I think you meant to say "Hamas' actions are a direct consequence of what Israel has been doing to Gaza"
You really wouldn't gather this by looking at the media churn. It's pro Israel to with it's foot to the floor. If you dare voice distention, you are labeled to be an anti Semite. This successful tactic has been a go to for years. For Israel to know true peace, they need to dump its current leadership. I won't see this happen in my lifetime.
It both is the case. But it should be really obvious to anyone that even a horrific terrorist attack doesn't just absolve Israel from international law.
"Jungle" Borell still in peak colonialist form.
Jesus Christ. 1200 civilians died. You are actually impossible
You obviously dont know your history. This all started when Britain made shady deals with a bunch of countries during the first world war. And even before that Israel was on that land before there was ever a Palestine.
Palestinians have been living there for hundreds of years, it is their home. The Isreali settlers started showing up 70 years ago and forced the inhabitants out of their houses. Do you seriously think that Jewish people deserve that land because of the religion of its inhabitants in ancient roman times?
Someone should probably do something about that huh
Gaza doesn’t have any oil so nobody will help.
The EU may support Israel, but right now they're calling them out for this bullshit and I'm applauding them for that. Hurting innocent civilians is never a good idea no matter which side of the conflict does it.
I just noticed that the replies have turned into a crap ton of arguing.
It angers me how many people are now permanently displaced. From what I've seen, the numbers are going to be extremely high. How do you rehouse an entire city? Families are going to suffer many hardships because of this. I can't think of a better way to recruit a new generation for an age old cause.
A splinter in my mind has been spawned because of this.
The Palestinian government attacked their neighbor and took hostages. Their neighbor then stopped supplying Palestine with resources.
It seems Israel is aiming for the best case scenario here, which is for the people of Palestine to overthrow the death cult that controls their state.
That's called collective punishment, and is a war crime.
They're not really neighbors. Gaza is more like a prison controlled by Israel. Israel has controlled Gaza's electricity, food, water, and the movement of its citizens for many years. I believe even before this attack, Israel only allowed Gaza 4 hours of electricity per day.
Also, in 2019, the PM of Israel reportedly laid out a strategy to "bolster" Hamas and provide them funding to oppose the Palestinian Authority. Hamas, in its current form, would not have been possible without Israel creating the perfect conditions for terrorist organizations to thrive. Israel keeps the conditions so bad, the average age in Gaza is 18. So, half of those Palestinian death toll numbers we are seeing are likely children.
Why are they not sending wepons to Palestinians?
Because Israel destroying HAMAS or Palestine doesn't threaten EU. Yet.
To what end?
This isn't something Palestine can fight their way out of, however many weapons they have.
Because the very same article shows the EU most certainly doesn't like Hamas.
His condemnation of Israel's behaviour came after three days of EU rhetoric that had focused on the "utterly inhuman … shocking … barbarous" nature of Hamas' atrocities, while highlighting Israel's rights rather than its obligations.
He pledged his staff would conduct a swift review of EU aid to Palestine to make sure no money ended up with Hamas via error or deception.
Stopping aid to ordinary Palestinians would be "the best present we could give to Hamas and it would jeopardise our interests and partnerships in the Arab world," he added.
"We want to make sure that, beyond UNRWA, the EU budget does not get to any organisations which has any ties, any links to Hamas," he said.
EU sending weapons is not a matter of who is defending or attacking, only a matter of who they like
Of course, i was (rhetorically) asking our resident EU shills which claims EU is follwing some kind of beningn international policy.
Biden and the US have delivered and promises more military aid for Israel. What death toll do we want here? https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-speaks-with-israels-netanyahu-us-monitors-situation-2023-10-11/
Probably as much as possible, especially that Netanyahu is known for unhinged hate and slander for Palestinians and Biden now just repeats it after him.
So was the blockade. and they did nothing about it . bunch of spineless hypocrites
Not everything is about the US, you know, EU-internal politics regarding Israel are quite complicated.
I don't think we managed to officially ban products out of settlements yet but I don't see them anywhere for the simple reason that they have to be labelled as settlement products, not "Made in Israel". Israel threw a pretty fit over that, usually EU action (besides stern letters) takes the form of annoying the Israeli right by helping Palestinians.
Going against the USA means loss of a lot of things.
...none of which the EU can't replace. We've been in plenty a trade war, you're welcome to look up how those ended.
hypocrites?
Also EU
Also Ursula
Clearly Palestinian untermensch aren't really human in Ursula's eyes
Wait! I know what Borrell will do: expel Israel from Eurovision! That will serve them right and start behaving!
I don't expect much more from anything leaded by Borrell. We know him well in Spain.
Wtf is israel in Eurovision?
Because they're an EBU member and the EBU includes the whole Mediterranean, have a map. The reason the Arab states don't compete in Eurovision isn't because they're not allowed to, but because Israel participates. Morocco and Lebanon even are founding members, Israel joined in 1957 (look under "past members" Israel switched organisations in 2017).
Australia got special dispensation to participate even though they're only an associated member because they've been nuts about the contest for ages, constantly hitting very high viewer numbers.
Yes, and Australia is as well. :D
For some reason they are members of the European broadcasting union
I'm surprised they haven't used phosphorus on Gaza yet.
I saw videos of wf being used on gazan civvies. scumbag israelis
Where’s Egypt in all of this? Are they going to send aid through the border? Or are IDF goons guarding the border with Egypt as well?
IMO, the Egyptian state's interests, as any local corrupt power run by a national bourgeoisie and military state apparatus, are determined by their perceived geopolitical interests. Given how developments in Palestine can catalyze domestic politics, and given that Egypt does not want to have to deal with millions of refugees, it's not a given that they are going to get in the way of Israel bombing the crossings and blocking entry and exit of Gaza in general.
Looks like they don't want a flood of Palestinian refugees flowing into Egypt.
Whatever they can to make it worse or to benefit them.
Egypt needs permission from Israel to open the border. Israel owns a 100m buffet zone in the border since the war with Egypt.
That's a cop-out. Egypt could still open it from their side and leave it to Israel to police that 100 feet.
Egypt closed the border
For a pretty fucking good reason:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/10/11/israel-bombs-gazas-border-crossing-with-egypt
By just having the power to cut water, electricity and food to other ethnic should ring you a fucking bell deep to your throat about the problem!!!
so are you going to sanction them or?
EDIT: I am in the wrong fucking thread lmao
Deleted comments. I thought this was my tab for the Hexbear news bulletins megathread. Sorry.
I'm going to be real, I doubt they can even muster the will to write a strongly worded letter with the kinds of members who make up the EU.
"Do unto others as others have done unto you.". -- Israel
That was not the best takeaway, but here we are.
Stand up to Zionists!
Did someone manage to email-spam every MEP with pigpoopballs, lmao
and then they won't do anything.
Much like that UN report classifying Israel's action against Palestinians as Apartheid (which is criminal in international law), much will be said and very little will be done about this. The state of Israel has been going against international law and agreements for almost its entire existence: see its support for illegal colonies and the walling and ghettoization of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel's government has confidence that the US and NATO won't do anything to stop their criminal actions against Palestinians because that is what they've been doing for the last half century. They will continue to coddle Israel until it fulfills its goal of completely exterminating or expelling Palestinians from the land between the river and the sea, forging a state with a single ethnicity, culture and religion out of Palestine.
PS: just before anyone claims it: no, I do not support gratuitous acts of terrorism by Hamas, just as I don't support Israel's terrorism against Palestinians. All I'm trying to do is point out the historical context of the current conflict, so that nothing is distorted.
Blocking neccesities for civiliana like water is a war crime. Encircling enemy state after it lanched offensive to yours is not, otherwise e.g. allies pushing Nazis all the way back to Berlin was also crime.
Israel claims that Hamas is not a legitimate government and definitely not a state. They claim and control the territory of Gaza and consider Hamas a terrorist organization.
So by their own definition, this is a war crime crime against humanity.
https://euobserver.com/world/157534
Israel's siege of Gaza is illegal the EU's top diplomat has said, while insisting that European aid to Palestine will keep flowing.
"Israel has a right to self-defence, but it has to be done within international law ... cutting water, cutting electricity, cutting food to a mass of civilian people is against international law," said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday (10 October).
He repeated the view more than once in his press briefing. "The Palestinian people are also suffering," he added.
Borrell's words were the first direct EU criticism of Israel's reaction to a massacre of about 1,000 Israelis on Saturday by Hamas, a Palestinian group which rules Gaza.
The medieval-type Gaza blockade was announced by Israel's defence minister on Monday.
Israeli forces have also killed some 830 Palestinians in air raids, while the UN relief agency in Gaza, UNWRA, painted a grim picture of other events on the ground.
Food-distribution centres are closed, meaning 500,000 people didn't get food rations this week.
Schools are closed because some 190,000 people are using them as bomb shelters.
Solid waste collection has also stopped, while drinking water is being delivered by trucks for now, UNWRA said on Tuesday.
Borrell spoke to press in Muscat, where he had attended a meeting of Gulf-region ministers, as well as emergency EU foreign-ministers' talks.
His condemnation of Israel's behaviour came after three days of EU rhetoric that had focused on the "utterly inhuman … shocking … barbarous" nature of Hamas' atrocities, while highlighting Israel's rights rather than its obligations.
"Israel's actions are a direct consequence of what Hamas did," Borrell's spokesman had said in Brussels earlier the same day.
Borrell's colleague, Hungarian commissioner Olivér Várhelyi, also made it look like Europe endorsed collective punishment by tweeting on Monday that all EU aid to Palestine was being frozen.
This was not true and Várhelyi had not consulted anyone before tweeting it, the European Commission confirmed on Tuesday — but not before damage had been done.
The Várhelyi farce had prompted a "wave" of questions by Arab states, Borrell noted.
It also emboldened Israeli diplomats and some German MPs to push for wider aid-cuts and it frightened first responders.
"If UNRWA does not receive expected contributions, it will not be able to continue its life-saving service provision in Gaza and throughout the region, which would result in a humanitarian catastrophe," Marta Lorenzo, UNWRA's Europe director, told EUobserver.
Borrell said that "95 percent" of EU ministers took the same line in the Muscat talks, while "two or three" of the EU 27 did want aid cuts.
He pledged his staff would conduct a swift review of EU aid to Palestine to make sure no money ended up with Hamas via error or deception.
The EU commission spent €30m on water-sanitation facilities in Gaza last year for instance, as part of a wider €296m aid budget for Palestine including €97m for UNWRA.
"If, in a few years, we discover that some money we spent went to fund terrorist activities someone will have to take political responsibility for that. I don't believe it happens, but let's check it," Borrell said.
Stopping aid to ordinary Palestinians would be "the best present we could give to Hamas and it would jeopardise our interests and partnerships in the Arab world," he added.
The European Parliament helps to oversee EU spending via its budgetary-control committee.
And its 2024 EU-budget rapporteur, Romanian centre-right MEP Siegfried Muresan, also said he would consider freezing non-essential aid money if need be.
"We want to make sure that, beyond UNRWA, the EU budget does not get to any organisations which has any ties, any links to Hamas," he said.
"If there is anything from the EU budget that we feel has to be put in question or frozen or put in reserve as a consequence of the start of this war we are going to propose a respective amendment," Muresan added.
"On our end, it's very hard to check for that and no funding on our end has been specifically earmarked for Gaza," an EU parliament source also said.
Slap on the wrist at best for israel genociding desert dwellers but bringing down the hammer hard on twitter for standing out among Big Tech by being a LITTLE more "disinformation"-ey than the rest.
Is it UNWRA or UNRWA or are they two different agencies because wow with this article.
No you don't understand, what is Israel supposed to do when Palestine does that?
But don't you wonder why Palestine is doing that in the first place? It's because Israel did that thing before.
But Israel did that thing because Palestine did that other thing
But Palestine had no option but to do that because of what Israel did months before
But Israel had done that because of years of that
But how is that Palestine's problem? They only did that because what else would've they done?
...
The neat thing about history is that it exists in the material world. You can actually trace that sequence of events back to a thing that happened. In particular the Original Sin of this conflict is The Nakba. To pretend this great tragedy is somehow transcendental or beyond understanding is pure liberalism and an attempt to whitewash the crimes of the Israeli state. The violence is mutual but far from symmetric. One side is the oppressor and the other - the oppressed. Any pretense that it exists on a flat moral space is a distortion of the actual material conditions that exist.
Free Palestine
Agreed. I'm just pointing out how social media discussions are just "but but..." or "why can't they just...". It isn't worth giving attention to opinions of celebs and influencers when the conflict is ongoing and repercussions of quickly siding with one or the other without paying close attention to the nuances and attempts of white washing are pretty huge.
Israel is holding Palestinians in an area without letting them come and go as they please. Israel controls the flow of food, water, electricity, and building materials into Gaza. Israel controls who can travel for life-saving (often simple) medical treatment BECAUSE THE FUCKING HOSPITALS IN GAZA CAN'T GET THE MACHINES/MATERIALS TO TREAT THEIR PEOPLE.
No but please, GO OFF KING and build up this strawman "Palestinian supporter" that doesn't understand history and present that as a justification for settler colonialism
Agreed. I'm just pointing out how social media discussions are just "but but..." or "why can't they just...".
It is war.
More specifically,