{"id":216684,"date":"2025-06-26T19:42:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T19:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/216684\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T19:42:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T19:42:13","slug":"divisions-remain-over-catastrophic-gaza-war-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/216684\/","title":{"rendered":"Divisions remain over \u2018catastrophic\u2019 Gaza war \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

European leaders remain divided on how best to put pressure on Israel<\/a> to address the \u201ccatastrophic\u201d humanitarian conditions in Gaza<\/a>, after further debate during a summit in Brussels. <\/p>\n

The European Union<\/a>\u2019s 27 leaders signed off on a joint statement deploring the \u201cdire\u201d humanitarian situation in Gaza, caused by Israel\u2019s ongoing military campaign. The communique went on to criticise the \u201cunacceptable\u201d number of civilians killed and the levels of starvation in the Palestinian enclave.<\/p>\n

Negotiations at the EU summit were not expected to bridge the significant difference of opinion in the room about pushing Israel to allow aid into Gaza. <\/p>\n

Spain<\/a>, Ireland, Belgium<\/a>, Slovenia<\/a> and others want firmer action from the EU, which could include suspending a free trade deal with Israel, or putting sanctions on hardline Israeli ministers. Germany<\/a>, Italy<\/a>, Austria<\/a> and others advocate for the EU to continue to raise its concerns with Israel through diplomatic channels. <\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s left-wing prime minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez said the EU had put together 18 packages of economic sanctions targeting Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The fact the bloc\u2019s trade deal with Israel had not been suspended despite the \u201cgenocide\u201d in Gaza pointed to a double standard, he said. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Israeli bond investors risk complicity in genocide, TD claims in letter to Central Bank governorOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Suspending the EU-Israel agreement would not improve the situation for Palestinian civilians, said Austrian chancellor Christian Stocker, who spoke with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu<\/a> on the phone the day before the summit. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe civilian population must not pay the price for Hamas<\/a> terror. Netanyahu has pledged to step up all efforts in this direction so that humanitarian aid can be delivered,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Renewed focus has been put on the EU\u2019s response to Israel\u2019s invasion of Gaza, which has levelled much of the besieged territory and killed more than 56,000 Palestinians. <\/p>\n

Several \u201clike-minded\u201d European countries should move ahead on their own if the EU fails to agree to take action as a bloc, Slovenian prime minister Robert Golob said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is high time that we do not show just solidarity, but we put some real pressure on the Israeli government,\u201d Mr Golob said. <\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> said the refusal of some EU states to consider action against Israel to address the \u201ccatastrophic\u201d humanitarian crisis in Gaza was \u201cdifficult to comprehend\u201d. <\/p>\n

A recent EU review concluded Israel had committed human rights violations<\/a> during its war in Gaza, leading to calls for the union to use what leverage it has to push Mr Netanyahu to change course. <\/p>\n

It is understood the EU\u2019s foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas was asked to prepare options to take in response to the review, to table at a meeting of foreign ministers next month. <\/p>\n

The summit also discussed the war in Ukraine<\/a>, ongoing tariff negotiations involving the United States, the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, and defence spending. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0AG says he cannot help on legal query over Shannon flights that may aid Israel\u2019s Gaza warOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Slovakia\u2019s populist prime minister Robert Fico<\/a> threatened to withhold support for a further package of sanctions on Russia, which needs unanimous approval, if he did not get concessions on new EU proposals to phase out reliance on Russian gas. <\/p>\n

Separately, Hungary\u2019s far-right prime minister Viktor Orban <\/a>said he would continue to block Ukraine moving forward in its bid to join the EU. <\/p>\n

Brussels started what will be years-long negotiations with Kyiv last June, to consider accepting Ukraine into the 27-state bloc, but Hungary has since vetoed the process moving forward. <\/p>\n

Speaking before the summit, Mr Orban said he did not want Ukraine to advance into more detailed accession talks while it remained at war with Russia. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we integrate [Ukraine] into the European Union, we would integrate the war and we would not like to be together in a community with one country who is at war,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European leaders remain divided on how best to put pressure on Israel to address the \u201ccatastrophic\u201d humanitarian conditions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[33784,2000,299,5187,1699,10982,837,20418,681,6566,9041,1781],"class_list":{"0":"post-216684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-binyamin-netanyahu","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-gaza-strip","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","16":"tag-micheal-martin","17":"tag-robert-fico","18":"tag-ukraine-crisis","19":"tag-viktor-orban"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114751376175500131","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}