Borrell calls Israel’s Gaza evacuation plan ‘utterly impossible’

Beijing, China — AFP

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said that a plan by Israel to evacuate more than one million people out of northern Gaza was “utterly impossible to implement”.

Israel warned residents in the area on Friday to evacuate before an expected ground offensive against the impoverished, besieged territory.

“I am saying that, representing the official position of the European Union… (the evacuation plan) is utterly, utterly impossible to implement,” Borrell told a press conference in Beijing on the final day of a three-day diplomatic visit to China.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen had expressed enthusiastic and exclusive support to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday during a visit to the country, conspicuously not uttering a word of solidarity with Palestinian victims.

“Europe stands with Israel,” said von der Leyen, adding that the country had “a duty to defend its citizens”.

But Borrell’s comments in Beijing showed the limits of that affirmation, saying that Israel was also obligated to follow international humanitarian law in the process of defending itself.

“The position is clear,” said Borrell. “We certainly defend the right of Israel to defend itself.”

“But, as any right, it has a limit. And this limit is international law.”

Borrell’s words come one week after Hamas’ Operation Al Aqsa Flood in retaliation for repeated storming and desecration of the Al Aqsa mosque and incessant violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians.

Israel has responded with an intense bombing campaign against Palestinian targets in Gaza, killing over 2,000 people — most of them civilians and including more than 600 children.

Borrell said Saturday that the only feasible long-term strategy for resolving what he called a “spiral of violence” was to pursue the creation of an independent and internationally recognized Palestinian state.

China’s reaction to the conflict, which did not include a direct condemnation of the Hamas attacks, had been criticized by Western leaders as “too weak.”

Following a series of high-level talks with Chinese leaders, Borrell said that the EU and China agree on the two-state solution.

“We certainly agree that the only long-term solution to these crises that come one after the other… is to work on the solution of two states,” said Borrell.

“We agreed the international community should do the utmost to prevent the further degradation of the situation that could spill over the region.”