Israeli minister’s call to displace people from West Bank ‘completely unacceptable’: Borrell

ANKARA / GENEVA (AA) – Israeli foreign minister’s call to forcibly displace people from the West Bank is “completely unacceptable,” the EU foreign policy chief said on Thursday.

Before attending the informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Josep Borrell told reporters that UN’s Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza Sigrid Kaag will brief the ministers on the situation in the field.

She will “explain the situation and the situation of even the United Nations, which are under strong pressure from the Israeli government, preventing all the United Nations organizations to do their work,” Borrell said.

He also regretted the delay in the possible outcome of cease-fire talks and the increase in civilian casualties as the bombing continued.

“The call from the minister of foreign affairs of Israel to displace people from the West Bank, doing more or less the same thing that they did with the people in Gaza, this is completely unacceptable,” Borrell said.

He expressed the wish that the EU ministers would raise their voices against this, and also “the treatment of the United Nations and the way this war is being performed in accordance on all violation of humanitarian law.”

Kaag, for her part, drew attention to the displacement, absence of water, and difficulty in obtaining food in Gaza and underlined the need to keep on insisting on a cease-fire, as well as the unconditional release of all detainees.

“We also need a massive scale of humanitarian assistance,” she said.

“We need the right conditions to actually think and project the ideas and implement early recovery and reconstruction, dependent, of course, on the political and security arrangements in place taking into account the importance of the return on the Palestinian Authority as well as the legitimate security interests and concerns of the State of Israel,” the UN official added.

– ‘Unacceptable’ level of violence in West Bank –

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares stressed, during his doorstep remarks, that there is an “unacceptable” level of violence in the West Bank.

“The movements that occurred yesterday in the West Bank and the level of violence are very serious,” Albares said, warning that the risk of the conflict spreading is at “its highest.”

“That is why Spain, both at a national level and supporting the sanctions of the European Union, has imposed sanctions on violent Israeli settlers,” he said.

He noted that Madrid would insist during the meeting to use the “full range of measures at our disposal to ensure that peace returns to the Middle East, to ensure that the decisions of the International Court of Justice, which are also binding on Israel, are complied with” with the EU-Israel Association Council.

“The European Union must raise its voice to achieve a definitive cease-fire and to end this situation, and to finally allow all peoples, including the Palestinians and the Israelis, to coexist in peace and security,” he underscored.

– ‘A tragedy, a humanitarian catastrophe’ –

Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said that Brussels’ proposal regarding the latest developments in Gaza and the West Bank “is to have a cease-fire.”

Describing the need for a cease-fire as an “emergency,” the official said: “It is a tragedy, a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Mentioning that there will be a meeting with the UN senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza about the matter, Lahbib said: “What we are witnessing now is an escalation, a contamination (of violence) in the West Bank, which is unprecedented since more than 20 years.”

“So, it’s time to negotiate and to have a long-term strategy,” she said.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom also spoke about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank due to Israeli strikes.

“The immense suffering of the civilian population in Gaza must end,” he said, adding: “We really encourage all the parties now to move forward so that we can have an immediate cease-fire, and then, of course, a massive relief of emergency aid coming into Gaza.”

This would follow the release of detainees and the return to “a two-state solution,” he noted.

He also mentioned “the growing problems of extremist settlers’ violence in the West Bank,” which Stockholm “takes very seriously.”

“We look forward to a discussion on how to curb this and how to see to it that the order is reestablished, an order that does not allow for any of the innocent Palestinians to be attacked,” he said.

– ‘A war against Palestinians, not just Hamas’ –

Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin said that today’s meeting is a “very important meeting” especially regarding the “catastrophic situation in Gaza.”

Calling the Israeli strikes in Gaza and the West Bank “a war against Palestinians, not just Hamas,” Marin said: “The level of civilian casualties and debt is unconscionable.”

He pointed out the need for starvation to stop in the region, the need for “immediate release of all hostages,” and “unimpeded access to humanitarian aid.”

“I’m very conscious of the conclusions of the ICJ advisory opinion published last month, which now places obligations on states and on international organizations like the EU to examine its relationship with Israel in the context of its illegal occupation of the West Bank and of Gaza, so it cannot be business as usual,” he underscored.

Lamenting that “the international humanitarian law has been broken,” Martin said that he will be bringing this topic to the table during today’s meeting.

He underlined the need for a “very strong political pathway” as the solution while also calling for “an immediate cease-fire.”

“We have a moral obligation to raise these issues” as well as doing every possible thing “to end this war” the Irish foreign minister said, describing the death toll and the amount of destruction in the area as “quite shocking at this stage.”

“There cannot be a military solution along to this,” Martin warned.

Ireland is doing “nothing that would support illegal occupation of Palestinian territories,” the foreign minister said, adding: “It’s very, very clear that the displacement on numerous occasions of the 2 million inhabitants of Gaza really is inhumane at this stage and cannot be controlled in any circumstances.”

On Wednesday, the Israeli army launched a major military operation in the northern West Bank, the largest in two decades, killing 17 Palestinians, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called for the “temporary evacuation” of Palestinian civilians as well as “whatever steps are required” to carry out the operation.