Israel’s strategies in Palestine are illegal, says EU envoy

By Alyssa McMurty

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) - Sven Koopmans, the EU special representative for the Middle East Peace Process, said on Friday that several of Israel’s strategies in Palestine are illegal.

“Cutting off water and food access to the Gaza Strip is illegal; as it is also illegal to use hunger as a weapon of war. So is the expansion of settlements. It is all obvious,” said the Dutch international lawyer and diplomat in an interview with Spanish daily El Pais.

He also accused Israel of failing to comply with the binding UN Security Council resolution, which calls for a cease-fire and the urgent need to expand the flow of aid into Gaza.

“It’s obvious that Israel isn’t respecting this resolution… and that is unacceptable. It goes against everything that the EU represents. We are watching children die of hunger because it is not being applied,” he said.

He acknowledged the “terrible” situation of hostages still being held by Hamas, and described the general situation in Gaza as “absolutely atrocious and incomprehensible.”

Calling for an urgent peace process, he said the EU has been working with Arab partners so that a sustainable peace is ready the day after the hostilities come to an end.

He said the EU is working with Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League to prepare a package of incentives for them to integrate Israel into the region, with deals around free trade, water, energy and climate change.

He also said there needs to be “security guarantees” for Israel on the part of Europe, the US and other countries.

A peace fund supported by international countries is another key aspect of his plan to make “peace more attractive.”

Yet, he also acknowledged that it will be “terribly difficult” to bring Israel to this position.

“I understand as much as I can the trauma of the October attacks… but we’ve also seen how the security responses over the last 30 years did not work. Building all these walls and having the strongest military in the region didn’t stop Oct. 7,” he said.

In the interview, he also expressed his deep concern about more spillover and said the current “escalation of combat must stop.”

Flouting the International Court of Justice’s provisional ruling, Israel continues its onslaught on the Gaza Strip where at least 33,091 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 75,750 injured since Oct. 7, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.