EU Will Not Take Measures Against Israel Over Gaza Blockade and Will “Keep a Close Watch”

Brussels (Quds News Network)- The European Union’s 27 foreign ministers have decided not to take action against Israel following its recent agreement to improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, despite a total and crippling blockade on aid since March. They also delayed agreeing on a list of 10 options to respond to Israel’s genocide.

The EU will not “punish” Israel for its actions in Gaza and will “keep a close watch” on its implementation of a recent agreement to improve the flow of aid in the strip, the bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said in a press conference following a meeting of the EU’s 27 ministers in Brussels on Tuesday.

The ministers were in Brussels to discuss an EU-Israel agreement brokered last week to increase the number of trucks and distribution of food entering Gaza as well as the opening of several other crossing points.

They also examined an exhaustive list of 10 options, including the suspension of visa-free travel and the blocking of imports from the illegal Israeli settlements, in response to Israel’s breach of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

“Israel needs to take more concrete steps to improve the humanitarian situation on the ground,” Kallas told reporters, claiming Israel had already improved access and supplies of aid to Gaza.

“The EU will keep a close watch on how Israel implements this common understanding and the pledges.”

“The aim is not to punish Israel, the aim is to improve the situation in Gaza,” Kallas added.

The bloc’s ambassadors will be tasked to update Israel’s compliance of the agreement every two weeks, Kallas said, and the EU would keep the 10 options “on the table” and “stand ready to act if Israel does not live up to its pledges”.

On Tuesday, European Union aid chief Hadja Lahbib stated that Israel has not yet fully implemented the agreement with the EU aimed at improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“We have [seen] some positive developments. It’s true that we have trucks that are able to enter, but we don’t know exactly how many. And what is clear is that the agreement is not fully implemented,” she told reporters ahead of the meeting of EU foreign ministers.

On Monday, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said that the flow of aid into Gaza has not increased despite the deal. “Nothing has changed [on the ground],” he told reporters.

European nations like Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain have increasingly called for the EU’s ties with Israel to be reassessed in the wake of the war in Gaza.

This follows a report by the European Commission that found “indications” that Israel’s actions in Gaza are violating human rights obligations in the agreement governing its ties with the EU, but the bloc is divided over what to do in response.

Following Tuesday’s meeting, Slovenian foreign minister Tanja Fajon wrote on X that she regretted there hadn’t been “any consensus” during the meeting to follow up on the review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

She added that an “agreement in principle” on improving humanitarian aid “can’t be used as an excuse to inaction”.

“We all have a responsibility to protect civilians,” she added.

Prior to the meeting, some ministers had also sent clear signs that they wanted to take concrete measures against Israel.

Spain’s foreign affairs minister José Manuel Albares told reporters that in accordance with EU and international norms, his country would push for a suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, an arms embargo to Israel and the ban of products from the settlements. “This war needs to end, and the Israeli army needs to withdraw,” Albares said.

His French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot also said France would be ready to take sanctions targeted at “individuals and entities that are responsible for the extremist and violent colonisation” in the West Bank and to “stop any direct and indirect financial support to the colonisation”.

Dozens of protesters in Brussels called for more aggressive actions by Europe to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“It was able to do this for Russia,” said Alexis Deswaef, vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights. “It must now agree on a package of sanctions for Israel to end the genocide and for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.”

Human rights groups largely called the EU’s actions as insufficient.

“This is more than political cowardice,” said Agnès Callamard, secretary general on Amnesty International. “Every time the EU fails to act, the risk of complicity in Israel’s actions grows. This sends an extremely dangerous message to perpetrators of atrocity crimes that they will not only go unpunished but be rewarded.”