Israel cannot stay in Gaza after the war, EU top diplomat Josep Borrell said on Monday while presenting his vision ahead of his trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Borrell’s comments aligned with a warning by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel cannot reoccupy Gaza after its war with Hamas ends. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had stated earlier that Israel would take “overall security responsibility” for Gaza “for an indefinite period.”
Borrell announced on Monday that he will visit Israel and the Palestinian territories this week. Following the Hamas attacks of October 7, Israel’s airstrikes and ground operation in Gaza have led to the killing of more than 11,000 Palestinians, according to figures provided by the Palestinian Authority, including more than 4,500 children. This will be Borrell’s first visit to Israel since becoming EU foreign minister four years ago.
Days after the Hamas attack, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Israel to face a barrage of criticism from lawmakers and diplomats for not speaking up about the humanitarian consequences of Israel’s retaliatory strikes and of its having cut off electricity, fuel, food and water to the Gaza Strip in a complete siege.
In the first month of Israel’s war with Hamas, Borell has repeatedly taken to social media to criticize the situation in Gaza, saying it is “against international humanitarian law” and calling for “a pause of hostilities” to enable humanitarian access. In those positions he has gone beyond what EU countries agreed to collectively endorse.
Before his trip, the EU’s top diplomat spelled out his views for the post-war period at a meeting of EU foreign ministers. “I proposed today to the ministers … a framework,” he told reporters in a mix of English and Spanish at the end of the meeting, adding: “I think the ministers have agreed to support this approach.”
The framework is made up of three “nos” and three “yeses,” he said.
What cannot happen, according to Borrell, is this: Gaza’s territory cannot be reduced, and Israeli Defense Forces cannot re-occupy Gaza permanently (although Hamas cannot return either); Palestinians cannot be forcibly displaced from Gaza; and Gaza cannot be dissociated from the overall Palestinian issue, but instead must be framed within the solution of Palestinian issues.
In terms of what should happen, he added: “We believe that a Palestinian authority must return to Gaza,” stressing he meant “one Palestinian authority, not the Palestinian Authority.” Borrell’s Palestinian authority, he said, is one whose terms of reference and legitimacy must be defined and decided by the United Nations Security Council.
There is a need for Arab countries to be involved, he added, along with “a commitment from the European Union in the region and to the construction of a Palestinian state.”
“We have been too absent from the solution to this problem that we have delegated to the United States,” Borrell said at the end of his remarks.
