European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has urged Israel’s allies, mainly the United States, to stop sending it weapons because “too many people” are being killed in Gaza.
Referring to US President Joe Biden’s comment last week that Israel’s military action was “overblown”, Borrell said on Monday: “Well, if you think too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide you with fewer weapons to prevent this from happening. many people were killed.
“Isn’t that logical?” he asked at a news conference in Brussels alongside Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which is pressuring Israel to ‘he resigns.
“How many times have you heard the most prominent leaders and foreign ministers around the world say that too many people are being killed? » asked Borrell.
“If the international community believes that this is a massacre, that too many people are being killed, perhaps we need to think about the supply of weapons,” Borrell added.
The head of European diplomacy also criticized an order from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that more than a million Palestinian refugees in the Gaza town of Rafah must be “evacuated” ahead of a planned Israeli military operation there.
“They are going to evacuate – where? Towards the Moon? Where are they going to evacuate these people? » asked Borrell.
This is not the first time Borrell has expressed concern over an invasion of the southern Gaza town of Rafah. On Sunday, he said an attack there would “lead to an indescribable humanitarian catastrophe” and serious tensions with neighboring Egypt.
Rafah incursion ‘terrifying’
Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said European countries shared responsibility for atrocities in Gaza.
“We Europeans created the problem… we play a vicious role in perpetuating it,” Varoufakis told Tel Aviv Tribune.
The former finance minister accused Borrell of hypocrisy for saying there was not enough pressure on Israel, saying the EU was “collectively arming” Israel.
“As we speak, Germany, France (and) Italy are sending the weapons that are being used in Rafah to kill people,” Varoufakis added.
His latest comments come as dozens of people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Rafah, according to Palestinian health officials, as residents prepare for a major offensive on the densely populated urban area.
Meanwhile, Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief, also expressed concern over a planned Israeli ground attack on Rafah.
Turk said it was “entirely imaginable what lies ahead” if the planned incursion is not stopped.
“A potential full-fledged military incursion into Rafah, where some 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded along the Egyptian border with nowhere to flee, is terrifying, given the prospect that extremely high numbers civilians, again mostly children and women, are likely to be killed. be killed and injured,” Turk said in a statement.
Rights groups also warned that a large-scale attack on Rafah, the last relatively safe area of the enclave, would result in significant civilian casualties.
More than half of Gaza’s population gathered in Rafah to escape Israeli bombing, which reduced much of the rest of the Gaza Strip to rubble.
Most of Rafah’s residents have been displaced by Israeli offensives in northern, central and eastern Gaza.
Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs Gaza, warned Israel that a ground offensive in Rafah would jeopardize negotiations on a truce and the exchange of captives and prisoners.
More than 28,340 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israel’s attack on Gaza since October, according to Palestinian authorities. Relentless bombing and the Israeli ground offensive have displaced more than 80 percent of the population, according to humanitarian agencies, and reduced much of the territory to rubble.
Israel launched its war on Gaza after Hamas carried out a surprise attack in southern Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,139 people, most of them civilians, according to an Tel Aviv Tribune tally based on figures Israeli officials.
