The head of EU foreign policy on Friday compared widespread destruction caused by Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip to the devastation of German cities during World War II, saying it could be even “higher.“
Pointing to expansion of Israeli occupation in West Bank, Josep Borrell says 2-state solution becoming ‘much more difficult’
Talking to Spanish state broadcaster RTVE, Josep Borrell said the bombing campaign in the Palestinian enclave was already “one of the most intense in history” and denounced the level of destruction of its cities as “comparable, if not higher, to levels of destruction of German cities during the Second World War.”
Borrell also said he hopes Europe will take measures to “stop the violence against Palestinians in the occupied areas,” referring to the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where at least 271 have been killed in attacks by Israeli soldiers and settlers since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
He warned that the recent surge in violence in those areas has allowed an expansion of the Israeli occupation, now “four times greater than it was 30 years ago when the Oslo Accords were signed.”
Borrell added that the current situation was making a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “much more difficult.”
In 1993, the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel signed the Oslo Accords, which gave Palestinians a form of civil rule. Negotiations, however, failed to complete a peace agreement leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
US-sponsored peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis collapsed in April 2014 as Tel Aviv refused to stop settlement building and release Palestinian detainees imprisoned before 1993.
According to a report on Wednesday, Oxfam warned that Israel is carrying out a campaign of “collective punishment” against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and this is leading to chaos.
“Our political leaders are failing – in abject weakness – to forge a ceasefire, which is the only possible humanitarian action that now really matters,” Oxfam International Humanitarian Director, Marta Valdes Garcia, said in a statement.
“Israel’s so called safe zones within Gaza are a mirage: unprotected, not agreed or trusted, not provisioned and not accessible. We hold genuine fears that masses of terrified people will be forced beyond Gaza itself under the guise of ‘safety’,” she added.
BREAKING: In response to @antonioguterres
invoking art. 99, @Oxfam says: “Many within the international community – particularly Israel’s state supporters – are complicit in the mass death, forcible displacement, and starvation of more than 2m people.” 👉 https://t.co/hOcct5Jl1M pic.twitter.com/S7jX7KsNV8
— Oxfam International Media Team (@newsfromoxfam) December 6, 2023
“This would force the humanitarian system into an impossible choice between helping civilians and being complicit in their forced deportation.”
