An "intolerable" situation, "egregious actions," an "unacceptable" humanitarian "catastrophe." More than a year and a half after Hamas conducted its wave of attacks on Israel, which resulted in some 1,200 victims, Israel's retaliation and the intensification of its military operations in Gaza, with the death toll of more than 50,000 Palestinian victims continuing to rise, has left European leaders staggered.
In recent weeks, European governments have changed their tone when speaking about the Israeli government, notably due to pressure from their populations, who have been outraged by the destruction of residential areas, attacks on humanitarian workers and journalists, the way humanitarian aid was blocked – and then unfrozen in a chaotic, piecemeal way, while the Palestinian population has been starved and regularly forced to relocate from one area to another.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, on May 26: "What the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip, I no longer understand, frankly, what its objective is." The next day, his foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, asserted that Germany defends "the rule of law everywhere and also international humanitarian law."
No consensus
A week before, a proposal from the Netherlands, backed by a majority of European foreign ministers, called on European Union institutions to launch a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a political and trade treaty between the EU and Israel, which was signed in 1995 and has been in force since 2000. The proposal was based on Article 2 of the agreement, which stipulates that the parties to the deal commit to upholding certain fundamental rights, notably human rights.
Ireland and Spain had already called for such a review in February 2024, supported by Josep Borrell, the EU's head diplomat at the time, but the Commission stayed silent on the matter. One year later, the situation has changed: the Netherlands, which traditionally have close ties to Israel, convinced many other EU member states, and Kaja Kallas, Borrell's successor, promised to present this review to the EU's next Foreign Affairs Council on June 23, along with "options" for what comes next.
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