SALT EMERGUI Jerusalem

Jerusalem

Updated Wednesday, February 14, 2024-01:34

  • European Union Borrell, the European battering ram that shakes relations with Israel

"As in recent weeks, once again Josep Borrell does not speak on behalf of the common position of the European Union (EU) but rather a personal anti-Israeli position that ultimately helps the terrorist group Hamas," Israeli diplomatic sources denounce in an unprecedented allegation against the

head of European diplomacy

after asking the United States and other countries not to deliver more weapons to Israel due to the high number of deaths in the military offensive in the Gaza Strip.



"Borrell's anti-Israeli obsession goes beyond whoever governs in Israel and harms, above all, the EU's ability to influence in the region," they tell EL MUNDO, confirming their country's discomfort made official in the words of the Foreign Minister. ,

Israel Katz

. Citing the statements of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy against the supply of weapons, he writes on the X network: "Israel strictly adheres to the international laws of war, guaranteeing the safe movement of civilians in Gaza In stark contrast, Hamas prevents their safe passage. Our commitment to the lives of Gaza civilians is greater than Hamas's. Calls to limit Israel's defense only strengthen Hamas. Rest assured, Israel is determined to their mission to dismantle Hamas.


The diplomatic sources consulted by this newspaper, however, raise the tone of the criticism: "With their request for an arms embargo on Israel and an immediate truce whose meaning is the continuation of Hamas in the Gaza Strip to be able to continue attacking us and control its population regardless of its needs, Borrell wants to receive the Nobel Peace Prize at the expense of the security of Israel and the inhabitants of Gaza. As they explain, these two calls "do not correspond to the consensual policy of the EU as expressed at the meeting of its leaders in October in which it recognized Israel's right to defend itself and the decisions of the European Parliament."



On Monday, Borrell also raised his tone in an intervention in which he attacked the devastating Israeli offensive and referred to criticism in the international community, including that of President Joe Biden, who a few days ago defined the military response of his great ally as

" exaggerated

. "

"If you think that too many people have died, perhaps you should supply fewer weapons to prevent so many people from dying. Isn't that logical?" he declared, clarifying that "the EU does not give weapons to Israel, others do." According to him, Washington suspended the delivery of weapons to Israel in 2006 to force an end to the war with the pro-Iranian Lebanese militia Hezbollah.



According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza under Hamas control,

28,473 Palestinians have died

in the Israeli operation launched after the terrorist attack on October 7 that left 1,200 dead and 240 kidnapped in Israel. "Borrell trusts the figures given by the terrorist organization without differentiating between civilian and terrorist deaths and launches all kinds of accusations without evidence," criticize Israeli sources.



"My question is, beyond words, what else do you think needs to be done? If you think the number of deaths is very high, do you have any chance to reduce it?" Borrell asked himself in Brussels. In Jerusalem they responded that "Israel acts in accordance with international law to reduce as much as possible the number of civilian deaths, warning again and again so that they are not harmed in an unprecedented context in wars in which a terrorist group uses a population of two million inhabitants as a defensive shield".



After denouncing that the Palestinians "are being bombed without being able to escape from the Gaza Strip," the European leader rejected Israel's intention to carry out a ground incursion into what he considers the last stronghold of Hamas after completing control of Khan Yunis: Rafah . His concern about the possible

humanitarian effects

in an area that has become the last refuge for more than a million displaced people is shared by Biden, who on Sunday asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a "credible and achievable" plan to protect civilians. He promised "safe passages" that would allow the Palestinians to move away from the fighting zones in Rafah.



The next day, Borrell stated: "They are going to evacuate them where? To the Moon? If the international community believes that this is a massacre and that too many people are being killed, perhaps they should think about the supply of weapons."



"To completely eliminate Hamas, we cannot leave its four battalions in Rafah intact, but we will not do so without allowing the inhabitants to leave," they maintain in Israel, convinced that the rescue mission of the Israeli-Argentinians Luis Har and Fernando Marman in Rafah "It demonstrates the need for the operation since part of the kidnapped people are there."



"Israel wants to maintain and strengthen the relationship and cooperation with the EU, which on the other hand has improved in recent years and in many cases it was not because of Borrell but perhaps in spite of Borrell. Luckily, in a few months he has to leave office and will be replaced, we hope, by someone with a more neutral position," said official sources in Jerusalem.



"I listen to Borrell and I don't listen to someone from the PSOE but from the radical left," they conclude in a hectic diplomatic battle in the wake of

the toughest war

in memory between Israel and Hamas.