European Union Foreign Policy Chief, Josep Borrell has urged United States to rethink its military aid to Israel due to the high number of civilian casualties in the war in Gaza.
Borrell made reference to U.S President, Joe Biden who said last week that Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas attack had been “over the top.”
“Well, if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people being killed,” Borrell told reporters after a meeting of EU development aid ministers in Brussels.
“If the international community believes that this is a slaughter, that too many people are being killed, maybe we have to think about the provision of arms,” he added.
Earlier, Borrel revealed that he is “extraordinarily concerned” about Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s threats to launch attacks on Rafah with no evacuation plan and no prospect of refugee camps in Egypt.
This came as Israel launched an overnight attack on Rafah overnight and announced the release of two captives.
He said, “I am happy to know that two hostages have been liberated but also very much worried by the situation in the border with Egypt where new military operations seem to be taking place by the Israeli defence forces.”
“Netanyahu has been asking for the evacuation of 1.7 million people without saying where these people could be evacuated,” he added.
He asserted that even in the U.S, which is the strongest supporter of Israel, “President Biden himself considers that this action is disproportionate.”
“The toll of people being killed, civilians being killed is unbearable,” he said, adding that the U.S Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, had been “begging” Netanyahu “to stop killing people.”
“If they launch an offensive against a highly populated area with more than 1.7 million people, they will crash against a wall, they cannot escape,” he said.
Israel Told To Listen To Its “Friends”
Also on Monday, the Australian government warned that Israel’s plans for a military offensive on Rafah could have “devastating consequences” for Palestinian civilians staying there.
The Foreign Minister, Penny Wong suggested that a failure to ensure special care for more than 1 million civilians in the area, many in makeshift tents, would “cause serious harm to Israel’s own interests.”
Wong said 153 countries, including Australia, had already voted at the UN general assembly for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
“Many of Israel’s friends, including Australia, have expressed deep concerns about reports of an Israeli military operation in Rafah,” she said.
She added, “There is growing international consensus: Israel must listen to its friends and it must listen to the international community.”
Wong noted that Israel had a special obligation to the more than a million civilians sheltering in and around Rafah.
“Many civilians who were displaced in Israeli operations in the north have moved south to this area, often under Israeli direction.
“Israel now must exercise special care in relation to these civilians. Not doing so would have devastating consequences for those civilians and cause serious harm to Israel’s own interests.”
Penny Wong
Moreover, Volker Turk, the UN’s human rights Chief, expressed alarm over an anticipated Israeli ground assault on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population is sheltering.
Turk said it is “wholly imaginable what would lie ahead” if the planned incursion is not stopped.
“A potential full-fledged military incursion into Rafah, where some 1.5 million Palestinians are packed against the Egyptian border with nowhere further to flee, is terrifying, given the prospect that an extremely high number of civilians, again mostly children and women, will likely be killed and injured.”
Volker Turk
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