European diplomacy chief Josep Borrell suggested on Monday that the US should supply fewer weapons to Israel if it believes there are too many deaths on the Palestinian side.
• Also read: Who are the 130 hostages, living or dead, still being held in Gaza?
• Also read: Court orders Netherlands to stop supplying F-35 parts to Israel
• Also read: “Many tears and few words” during the release of the two Israeli hostages
“If you think too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide fewer weapons to prevent so many people from being killed. “Isn’t that logical?” he told the press, referring to statements by American President Joe Biden, who considered the Israeli response to Gaza “excessive.”
“Everyone goes to Tel Aviv and begs, please don’t do this, protect the civilian population, don’t kill so many people,” Borrell said after a meeting of European Union (EU) development ministers. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “doesn’t listen to anyone,” he added.
“They will evacuate the Palestinians.” “Or? On the moon?” he asked again, referring to the offensive announced by Israel in the south of the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are gathered.
- Listen to international political expert Loïc Tassé on Benoit Dutrizac's show QUB :
On Monday, the appeals court in The Hague ordered the Netherlands to stop exporting F-35 parts to Israel, ruling that “there is a clear risk that serious violations of the humanitarian laws of war will be committed in the Gaza Strip.” Israeli F-35 fighter jets.
“I have no idea what a safe place is in the Gaza Strip,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNWRA), said during this press conference.
He expressed feelings of “panic” over the Israeli army's planned operation in the southern Gaza Strip.
“We are talking about 5% of the population killed, injured or missing, or more than 100,000 people out of a population of two million, in just four months,” he said.
According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, which counted 164 dead in 24 hours on Monday, the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip left 28,340 dead, the vast majority of them civilians.
When asked about the future prospects of this agency, which Israel wants to see dismantled following allegations of complicity with Hamas, Mr. Lazzarini reiterated that the end of UNWRA operations would “deprive half a million children in Gaza of education” and would have more than an impact five million Palestinian refugees in Israel, Lebanon and Jordan.
The war was sparked on October 7 by an unprecedented attack by Hamas commandos who crossed into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.