Middle East conflict: EU analysis: Israel violates principles for close cooperation

With his approach in the Gaza Strip, Israel violates defined principles for close cooperation with the EU. This is the result of an internal test report by the EU foreign representative Kaja Kallas, who has now been sent to the Member States, as the German Press Agency in Brussels learned from diplomats.

For the governments of the federal states and the EU, the question now arises as to whether and how they react to the analysis. The options range from suspending the current partnership agreement to economic sanctions. For example, customs make-ups could be canceled and Israel’s access to the EU research promotion program Horizon could be blocked.

At the top political level, the report is to be discussed for the first time on Monday at a foreign minister meeting. On Thursday, he should also be a topic at the Juni summit of heads of state and government.

Analysis was requested by Foreign Minister

The report, under the leadership of the EU foreign representative Kaja Kallas, is the result of an order from the EU Foreign Ministers’ Council. In May he had decided to check whether Israel was still adhering to the basic principles of the so -called association agreement. These include that the relationship between the contracting parties is also based on respect for human rights.

Israel’s procedure in the Gaza Strip is now considered a violation of the basic principle in the report. The background is in particular that the country has hardly left any deliveries of relief goods into the Gaza Strip for months, in which around two million Palestinians live. Israel justifies his approach by the fact that the Islamist Hamas benefit from the aid deliveries.

Israel accuses the Leyen of the Leyen legal violations and violence

The result of the report has been emerging for a few weeks. The EU Commission President of the Leyen had already said at the end of May that the escalation and disproportionate use of violence against civilians in the Gaza Strip under humanitarian and international law could not be justified. The expansion of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip, in which civilian infrastructures are targeted, is hideous.

As an example, she cited the destruction of a school building that served as a refuge for displaced Palestinian families. Children also died. Israel spoke of an attack on an Islamist Hamas command center.

Intensive discussions about the partnership agreement with Israel had already existed in the EU last year. They mainly assumed Spain and Ireland.