released<\/a> on Friday said that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip indicate a breach of the human rights provisions contained in its Association Agreement with the European Union. The issue is set to be considered by foreign ministers meeting on Monday.<\/p>\nCiting a collection of findings by independent international organisations, the highly anticipated review from the bloc’s diplomatic service said it found “indications” that Israel breached its human rights obligations with actions in Gaza.<\/p>\n
The breach stems from Israel’s offensive on Gaza and the stringent conditions applied to the deliveries of humanitarian aid, which have stoked fears of widespread famine among Palestinians living in the densely populated enclave.<\/p>\n
In the letter seen by Euronews, the Israeli foreign ministry expressed its \u201castonishment\u201d that the report disregarded \u201cour detailed response to the questions submitted to us\u201d.<\/p>\n
The letter starts with a presentation of what it calls \u201cthe strategic reality Israel is facing\u201d, detailing how it is \u201cfighting a war on seven fronts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is against this backdrop \u2013 Israel\u2019s combat with a host of brutal enemies – that the EUSR was tasked with doing a \u2018rush job\u2019, compiling a biased and extremely one-sided summary of many anti-Israeli voices and documents into a so-called \u2018honest report\u2019 for the Member States of the EU,\u201d the letter states.<\/p>\n
The Israeli foreign ministry letter focuses on what it calls \u201ctwo failures\u201d of the EUSR report, claiming that it \u201cfails to take into account the context\u201d and \u201ccrucial facts\u201d the\u00a0October 7\u00a0attacks followed by \u201cthe ongoing attempt by Iran and its proxies to bring about the annihilation of the Jewish state\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cA report that opens with an admission that it lacks the ability to verify its own statements, or even the mandate to address the numerous terror attacks by Palestinians against Israel, cannot be taken seriously,\u201d the letter says.<\/p>\n
The letter claims that the EUSR report \u201cfails morally\u201d by neglecting to address any damage inflicted on Israeli civilians\u201d by Hamas\u2019 control of the Gaza strip and its actions against Israelis, including what it calls \u201cthe proven complicity of UN bodies such as UNRWA.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe report aims to deny Israel\u2019s right to defend itself against terrorism. It does not cite any of the many positive actions undertaken by Israel in the humanitarian field and neglects to mention the continuous refusal by Hamas of a US-brokered hostage deal (the \u2018Witkoff Proposal\u2019) which Israel has agreed to,\u201d the letter says.<\/p>\n
Secondly, the Israeli foreign ministry letter claims that the EUSR report also \u201cfails methodologically\u201d.<\/p>\n
No opportunity to defend itself, Israel claims<\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael was not given an opportunity to defend itself against the extreme accusations mounted on it. Regretfully, even a person facing dismissal from a job, receives more leeway to state his or her case, than the complete disregard the EUSR has shown toward the objective facts and evidence of the State of Israel,” the letter claims.<\/p>\n
The EUSR did not adhere to due process, it alleges, choosing not to engage Israel in dialogue over the report. The EUSR also did not allow Israeli information to be included in the report; and in fact, even when Israel thoroughly detailed its position in communication\u2013 offering detailed answers on several topics – the information presented was neither added nor addressed in the report,\u201d the letter states.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The letter insists on \u201cIsrael’s Compliance with International Law\u201d, and claims that \u201ca simple dialogue with Israeli authorities could have made these facts clear. Israel is a democratic state abiding by IHL and international law, while fighting to survive in a region void of democracy and full of terrorism and radicalism. Its actions should be judged fairly and honestly, a process at which the report in question has failed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThroughout the war against Hamas, Israel has facilitated the transfer of large quantities of humanitarian aid into Gaza, even under fire,\u201d the letter says in response to the EUSR report, which speaks about the blockade of humanitarian assistance, military strikes against hospitals, the forced displacement of the Palestinian population, mass arrests, arbitrary detentions, the expansion of settlements, which are illegal under international law, in the Occupied Territories, and the violence committed by settlers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the EUSR report, the violations are described as numerous and serious.<\/p>\n
The internal review exercise was launched last month at the request of 17 countries, led by the Netherlands, to determine whether Israel was still complying with Article 2 of the Association Agreement, which states bilateral relations “shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this agreement”.<\/p>\n
The Israeli foreign ministry response concludes that the EUSR report \u201cis absurd and reflects an unprecedented process directed at a democratic state in the midst of war,\u201d and that it \u201ccompletely ignores the circumstances, as well as the substantive comments and responses provided by Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
The stern response by Israel\u2019s foreign ministry appears to echo the statements made by Israel\u2019s ambassador to the EU and NATO Haim Regev<\/strong>,<\/a> on Thursday 19 June.<\/p>\nIn an interview with Euronews, ambassador Regev was clear and firm about his government\u2019s current interactions with the European Union on the crisis with Iran and about Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza, saying \u201cwe hear different tones, but at the end of the road we see and we feel the support.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Israeli government has \u201ca continuous and intensive interaction\u201d with the top EU institutions in Brussels, but \u201cof course it is complicated when it comes to have one position in the Union composed of 27 member states,\u201d the Israeli diplomat said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a war right now and Israel is actually leading this war against Iran, that this is the war also for the benefit, for the long run of Europe. So this is not the time right now to examine or to push things or to try to put obstacles in the Israel-EU relations,” Regev concluded.<\/p>\n
The Commission and External Action Service have been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT Israel has blasted the EU-Israel Association Agreement (EUSR) review, saying \u201cthis report and its conclusions should not…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8630,99,71,3097,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-7239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-eu-foreign-policy","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-israel-iran-conflict","11":"tag-middle-east","12":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114731105977664513","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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