In mid-February 2024, four months after Hamas committed its October 7, 2023, attacks, Pedro Sanchez, Spain's prime minister, and his Irish counterpart, Leo Varadkar, wrote to the European Commission, calling for an "urgent review of whether Israel is respecting its obligations, including under the EU/Israel association agreement."

Given the Israeli army's many violations of international humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip, as documented by non-governmental organizations, and the nearly 28,000 Palestinian deaths that had been recorded at the time, the two leaders questioned whether the agreement was being respected. Since 1995, this agreement has governed both the political relationship between the two partners and the liberalization of their bilateral trade exchanges. Its Article 2 stipulates that signatories are under an obligation based on "respect for human rights and democratic principles." At the time, the European Commission ignored the two prime ministers' letter.

On Tuesday, May 20, in Brussels, 15 months later, and at a time when the Gaza Strip has been under a humanitarian aid blockade for 11 weeks and the death toll has surpassed 52,000 people killed – mostly civilians – Kaja Kallas, the European Union's head diplomat, announced that the Commission would review whether Israel was respecting the Association Agreement. This time, the Commission could not avoid the issue.

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