Israel's attacks seem designed to make Gaza into no-man's land: EU's Borrell

BRUSSELS

Israel’s months of attacks on Gaza seem designed to make the strip into an uninhabitable wasteland, said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Wednesday.

“After five months of devastating war and destruction, the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza give the impression that its objectives go beyond destroying Hamas. As Major General Giora Eiland wrote last December in (Israeli daily) Yedioth Ahronoth there appears to be an effort to ‘turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in’,” Borrell wrote on his EU blog.

“Almost everything that allows a human society to function has been destroyed: civil register, property register, cultural and health infrastructure, most of the schools built by UNRWA,” he added, referring to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Saying that the Israeli armed forces are clearly failing to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure and that the humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza is totally insufficient, Borrell said: “Across Gaza, civilian infrastructure is devastated.”

He stressed that almost the entire Palestinian population has been displaced, saying: “1.7 million people are surviving in UNRWA shelters, the UN agency in charge of helping Palestinian refugees, of which 158 staff members have already been killed. Civil order is collapsing in Gaza and anarchy is spreading,”

“The ruling by the International Court of Justice (in) January is legally binding, and Israel has finally to abide to it,” Borrell said.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. Its January interim ruling ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

More paths for humanitarian aid needed

Borrell said that Jordan, some EU member states, and the US have started airdropping food into Gaza. While better than nothing, airdrops are far from the most efficient way to provide the urgently needed amount of food to the 2 million people living in Gaza, he said.

“Israel should allow massive aid to enter Gaza by land. There are airports at only 90 minutes by road from Gaza where aircrafts bringing humanitarian aid could land,” he further said.

He added: “Obstacles to humanitarian aid transfer at the Kerem Shalom crossing must be urgently removed, and the Karmi and Erez crossings in the North of Gaza need to be opened for humanitarian aid. Additionally, maritime access should be granted immediately to bring much-needed relief.”

On the situation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Borrell said: “There has been a surge of demolitions, settlement construction, restrictions on movement and access, as well as settler violence since Oct. 7. All these measures make the life of Palestinians in the occupied territories very difficult, if not almost impossible. For months, we have been calling on Israel to seriously confront settler violence, release much-needed revenues withheld from the Palestinian Authority, and refrain from actions that may aggravate an already explosive situation. So far, without success.”

Stressing that a two-state solution is the only way to solve the problem once and for all, he added: “The EU is determined to advance on this path and US President Biden is also working in this direction. Despite the refusal of the (Benjamin) Netanyahu government, the international community is united on the question of the two-state solution and will have to advance swiftly on its implementation.”

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.

More than 30,700 Palestinians have since been killed and 72,156 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

*Writing by Zeynep Cetin in Istanbul