Israel was using starvation to wage war in Gaza, the EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has told the UN’s highest body, in one of his strongest allegations since 7 October.
“Starvation is being used [by Israel] as a war arm [sic] and when we condemn this happening in Ukraine, we have to use the same words for what is happening in Gaza,” Borrell said in a speech in the UN Security Council (UNSC) in New York on Tuesday (12 March).
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EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said he wanted to ‘speak from the heart’ (Photo: un.org)
Some 500,000 people were “on the brink of starvation” in Gaza because Israel was blocking aid trucks, Borrell said.
“This isn’t a natural disaster. It’s not an earthquake or a flood — it’s man-made,” he said.
“I’m asking Israel not to impede humanitarian support to go in the natural way, which is the road. Hundreds of trucks should come into Gaza to avoid the starvation of hundreds of thousands of people,” he added.
Borrell, a centre-left Spanish politician, had already accused Israel before of breaking international law in Gaza, where it has so far killed over 31,000 people.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch group also said on 18 December Israel was “using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the Gaza Strip, which is a war crime”.
But the EU top-diplomat’s words on Tuesday were the most specific war-crime allegation he has made.
Borrell also broke a taboo in EU diplomacy — that of comparing Israeli aggression against Palestinians to Russian aggression against Ukrainians.
The EU has said Israeli aggression was justified because Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing around 1,200 Israelis and taking some 250 hostages.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was unprovoked.
But Borrell doubled down on his views also in the closing Q&A session of the UNSC event.
“Using hunger as a weapon of war is a crime and it holds true whether we see it in Ukraine or in Gaza,” he said.
For her part, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, a German centre-right politician, was characteristically softer on Israel in a speech at the European Parliament the same day.
“We have all seen the reports of children dying of starvation. This cannot be,” she said in Strasbourg on Tuesday, without blaming Israel.
“Protection of civilians must be ensured at all times, in line with international law,” she added, also without referencing Israel.
Von der Leyen called for “an immediate humanitarian pause” and spoke of EU efforts to deliver food by sea and air.
But humanitarian groups say the maritime corridor will take too long to set up, while air-drops are too small to prevent famine.
Far-right ministers in the Israeli government have called for ethnic cleansing followed by Israeli re-settlement in Gaza.
Israel has also accused the UN’s leading aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, of harbouring terrorists.
The still-unproven accusations saw several UNRWA donors pull funds, putting the agency’s future at risk.
And Borrell framed Israel’s approach to UNRWA in the context of extremist Israeli views on Palestinian refugees.
“UNRWA exists because there are Palestinian refugees and we won’t make the refugees disappear by making UNRWA disappear — they’ll still be there,” he said in New York on Tuesday.
The US and French ambassadors, who also spoke, said little on Gaza.
France voiced support for the EU to pay out €82m to UNRWA this year, as originally planned.
The US envoy, like von der Leyen, spoke of the “immense needs” of the Palestinian people and of help “when the violence ends”, without blaming Israel.
Russian sarcasm?
The UNSC debate had been called by Japan to discuss UN-EU cooperation.
The Russian ambassador spoke at length about EU “neocolonialism, Russophobia, impotent anti-Russian rage” and called it an “aggressive, expansionist bloc”.
“It seems he [the Russian ambassador] was sarcastic. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry … do any of you feel under attack by the EU? How many countries are we bombing?”, Borrell replied, in a rhetorical question.
None of the other UNSC speakers took Russia’s bait.
The Algerian ambassador thanked Borrell for his “courageous” words on Gaza.
The ambassador of Mozambique called for EU help in organising elections in the Central African Republic, where Russia has built strong influence.
China urged global power blocs to step back from confrontation. Borrell said “the EU has nothing against China as a major political and economic power”, in reply.
Borrell and von der Leyen’s divergent UN and European Parliament speeches also came amid Israeli threats to invade Rafah, in southern Gaza — a move which could send civilian casualties even higher and risk regional escalation.
For their part, EU leaders aim to call for a “humanitarian pause” in Gaza at a summit in Brussels on 21 March, according to a draft summit statement.
But EU efforts to chill Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aggression, by suspending trade perks or blacklisting violent Israeli settlers, have stalled, amid EU Commission procedural delays and Hungarian opposition.
France, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Romania, who are leading EU arms suppliers to Israel, have also declined to speak of an embargo for now.
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