EU ministers request more detail and action from Israel on aid deal for Gaza

By SAM McNEIL
Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is seeking updates — and more action — from Israel on implementing a new deal to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Tuesday.

Foreign ministers from the EU’s 27 member nations were meeting in Brussels in the wake of the deal largely forged by Kallas and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar. Saar met with EU leaders on Monday after agreeing last week to allow desperately needed food and fuel into the coastal enclave of 2.3 million people who have endured more than 21 months of war.

“The border crossings have been opened, we see more trucks going in, we see also operations of the electricity network, but it’s clearly not enough because the situation is still untenable,” Kallas said.

Details of the deal remain unclear, but EU officials have rejected any cooperation with the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund over ethical and safety concerns. Opening more border crossings and allowing more aid trucks into Gaza is the priority, but officials say eventually they’d like to set up a monitoring station at Kerem Shalom crossing.

Calls to reassess ties with Israel

European nations like Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain have increasingly called for the EU’s ties with Israel to be reassessed in the wake of the war.

A report by the European Commission found “indications” that Israel’s actions in Gaza are violating human rights obligations in the agreement governing its ties with the EU, but the bloc is divided over how to respond.

Public pressure over Israel’s conduct in Gaza made the new humanitarian deal possible, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said, adding: “That force of the 27 EU member states is what I want to maintain now.”

Kallas will update EU member nations every two weeks on how much aid is actually getting through to desperate Gazans, Irish Foreign Minister Thomas Byrne said.

“So far we haven’t really seen the implementation of it, maybe some very small actions, but there’s still slaughter going on, there’s still a denial of access to food and water as well,” he said. “We need to see action.”

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manual Albares Bueno said details of the deal were still being discussed and the EU would monitor results to see if Israel is complying.

“It’s very clear that this agreement is not the end — we have to stop the war,” he said.

There have been regular protests across the continent, including a small one on Tuesday outside the European Council, where the ministers were discussing the aid plan.

Dozens of protesters in Brussels called for more aggressive actions to stop Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

“It was able to do this for Russia,” said Alexis Deswaef, vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights. “It must now agree on a package of sanctions for Israel to end the genocide and for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.”

Human rights groups largely called the EU’s actions insufficient.

“This is more than political cowardice,” said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International. “Every time the EU fails to act, the risk of complicity in Israel’s actions grows. This sends an extremely dangerous message to perpetrators of atrocity crimes that they will not only go unpunished but be rewarded.”

Risks to humanitarian groups

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage, most of whom have been released in earlier ceasefires. Israel responded with an offensive that has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The ministry, which is under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants. The U.N. and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.

The EU has observed some aid trucks entering Gaza, but “not enough,” said Hajda Lahbib, an EU commissioner for equality, preparedness and crisis management.

“The situation is still so dangerous, so violent, with strikes still continuing on the ground, that our humanitarian partners cannot operate. So, this is the reality — we need to have a ceasefire,” she said.

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Associated Press journalist Sylvain Plazy contributed to this report.