{"id":330625,"date":"2025-08-09T13:18:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T13:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/330625\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T13:18:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T13:18:17","slug":"uk-italy-austria-and-germany-stop-short-of-condemning-israel-over-latest-gaza-occupation-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/330625\/","title":{"rendered":"UK, Italy, Austria and Germany stop short of condemning Israel over latest Gaza occupation plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<strong>A nine-country statement backed by the foreign ministers of Austria, Germany, Italy, Norway, and the United Kingdom among others says Israel is at &#8220;risk&#8221; of legal consequences for its decision to occupy Gaza, stopping short of earlier condemnation of the plan by France and Canada.<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n<p>\nIn the statement, the group of European countries <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/joint-foreign-ministers-statement-on-gaza\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> they \u201cstrongly reject\u201d Israel&#8217;s move to occupy the territory, adding that it would \u201caggravate the catastrophic humanitarian situation\u201d and put in further danger the lives of the hostages held by Hamas.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;The plans that the government of Israel has announced risk violating international humanitarian law,&#8221; the statement \u2013 which France, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also joined \u2013 reads. &#8220;Any attempts at annexation or of settlement extension violate international law.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nFrance, which signed up to the latest statement only on Saturday afternoon after Germany, Italy and the UK, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jnbarrot\/status\/1953870812244484140\">said<\/a> on Friday that it \u201cstrongly condemns\u201d Israel&#8217;s offensive plan. Canada, which also signed up late, said it \u201ccondemns\u201d the intended occupation in its own earlier statement.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cWe reject any unilateral change to the territorial or demographic status of the Gaza Strip\u201d, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BMeinl\/status\/1953873695472078851\">said<\/a> Beate Meinl-Reisinger, Austria\u2019s foreign minister, on social media.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe new nine-country intervention, which came after Israel said it had decided to launch a full takeover of Gaza City after months of bombardment, has been met with criticism for not going far enough.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nEx-New Zealand PM Helen Clark, whose country signed the European statement, argued opting for \u201creject\u201d over \u201ccondemn\u201d blunted the message. \u201cWhy the muted language in face of catastrophe\u201d, she <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/HelenClarkNZ\/status\/1953956040170414312%5C\">asked<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nOn Friday, Germany <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euractiv.com\/section\/politics\/news\/germany-suspends-some-weapon-exports-to-israel-in-response-to-gaza-decision\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said it would stop<\/a> exporting arms to Israel.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nUPDATE: This story has been updated to include the full list of countries that have signed up to the statement released on Saturday.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n(jp)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A nine-country statement backed by the foreign ministers of Austria, Germany, Italy, Norway, and the United Kingdom among&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-330625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114999008216954784","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330625","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=330625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}