European stance fuels genocide in Gaza and perpetuates illegal occupation of Palestinian territory
The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, during the European Council of the EU-Israel association in Brussels, 24 February 2025
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor writes on 16 July 2025:
The European Union’s failure to take effective action to halt Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip represents a blatant breach of its international legal obligations, particularly its duty to prevent and punish genocide. This inaction enables the ongoing crimes against Palestinians, granting Israel de facto impunity and effectively rewarding its actions.
Such a failure strips the EU of any legal or moral credibility in its professed commitment to justice and human rights, while undermining the principles of accountability and the foundations of the international system.
During the recent Foreign Affairs Council meeting, the EU’s 27 foreign ministers agreed to “keep a close watch” on Israel’s adherence to a recent agreement to improve humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, while delaying discussion of ten proposed response options to Israel’s actions in the enclave.
This position reflects a glaring lack of political will to apply meaningful pressure and highlights the persistent complicity of many member states, effectively granting Israel a green light to continue targeting civilians and destroying their means of survival.
The EU’s repeated calls to “improve the humanitarian situation on the ground” are a blatant attempt to whitewash the image of the Israeli occupation, especially in the absence of any concrete or credible measures to fully open the crossings or guarantee a sufficient and safe flow of aid. This approach reflects more than mere inaction; it constitutes active complicity in engineering starvation. It also mirrors the bloody role of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose aid distribution centres have become sites of mass killing.
“At a time when entire families are being wiped out, dozens of children are killed daily, and a full-scale genocide is being carried out against a defenceless population, the EU’s limited focus on sending food aid to Gaza amounts to a blatant betrayal of humanity and a failure to uphold its legal and moral responsibility to stop one of the gravest crimes of our time and ensure accountability for its perpetrators,” said Lima Bustami, Director of Euro-Med Monitor’s Legal Department.
Bustami continued: “Reducing this horror to a temporary humanitarian crisis or a logistical matter of truck counts and crossing points exposes the emptiness of European rhetoric on values, dignity, and human rights. It reveals the EU’s actual position as not merely passive, but actively complicit in fuelling the machinery of killing and destruction.”
“Gaza is not facing a food crisis, but a deliberate project of starvation, uprooting, and eradication,” Bustami explained, “What is needed now is not merely an improvement in humanitarian conditions, but a principled political stance that defends what remains of the legitimacy of the international system, prioritises human life over political expediency, and is willing to bear a cost that is trivial compared to the obligation to protect an entire people from genocide.”
“It also requires an end to the illegal occupation and apartheid regime, the prosecution of those responsible, and the dismantling of the deep-rooted structures of oppression imposed on Palestinians for decades. This duty rests not only with the EU as a whole but with each individual member state, even in the absence of a unified position,” Bustami added.
Through both action and inaction, European governments continue to provide political and legal cover for Israel’s violations, despite internal assessments and public statements recognising serious breaches of international humanitarian law, including acts that may amount to genocide.
The EU has conducted three formal reviews over the past year, assessing Israel’s compliance with the “human rights” clause in Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. All three revealed strong indications of Israel’s breach of its contractual obligations.
However, none of the EU’s main institutions, including the European Commission, the European Council, and the European Parliament, has activated any of the corrective measures available under the agreement, such as invoking Article 79 to adopt appropriate measures in response to violations, or initiating the dispute settlement procedures outlined in Articles 75 and 76.
Continuing to implement the EU-Israel Association Agreement and granting Israel preferential treatment in trade, research, culture, and education, while it commits serious and documented crimes, violates European legal frameworks and provides political legitimacy and material support that enable Israel to continue its actions against Palestinian civilians without accountability.
This pattern of relations, marked by the absence of legal consequences alongside ongoing political and economic cooperation, deliberately undermines the legal obligations of European states under international law, including the Genocide Convention, the Geneva Conventions, the Arms Trade Treaty, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, customary international law, and the Treaty on European Union.
EU complicity is deepened by double standards, as some European governments continue to issue pro forma statements condemning Israel’s “disproportionate attacks” while simultaneously supplying it with weapons, military technology, and intelligence support. These actions are not acts of diplomacy but rather displays of propaganda that actively enable further Israeli crimes.