Humanitarians should stop. Or humanitarian window. Or stop the fire. The summit that brings together twenty-seven EU leaders this Thursday and Friday in Brussels has as its main topic the conflict between Israel and Hamas after the terrorist attack on October 7 and the escalation of hostilities. A meeting that seeks to find a common position at the community level.
The underlying issue is language. Already at the last meeting of foreign ministers last Monday in Luxembourg, the High Representative of the EU said to propose a “humanitarian pause” to allow access to aid, mainly fuel and water, to the population of the Gaza Strip. Although the final position is in the hands of the leaders, it remains to be seen if the final text of the conclusions of the summit refers to “stopping.”
The conflict between Israel and Palestine is one of the most divisive conflicts within the EU. Yes, Germany has been inclined in recent days to talk about a “humanitarian window.” French President Emmanuel Macron called for “a humanitarian truce” during his trip to Israel this week. Meanwhile, the acting president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, aligned himself with the message of the United Nations Organization and called this week for an “urgent” ceasefire in Gaza.
At the weekend meeting in Cairo, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stood up for a ceasefire and defended that “these brutal attacks do not justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” Some statements provoked complete rejection from Israel. That is why the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, asked Guterres to apologize for his words. Therefore, he asked for his resignation after he was accused of justifying the actions taken against the Israelis.
Currently, the two-state solution is configured as the one that gets the most followers of the Twenty-Seven as a solution to the conflict. Although, in reality, the European Union has little power over the future of the situation in the Middle East, Even this same week, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, offered Barcelona and the meeting of the countries of the Union for the Mediterranean as a possible place for peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine on November 27.
The starting point, the basis of the leaders’ debate, is the declaration of the Twenty-Seven on October 15, in which they condemned the terrorist attack by Hamas and emphasized Israel’s right to self-defense “within human law and properly internationally.” .
