Friday

29th Mar 2024

Ashton calls on Israel to open border crossings to Gaza

  • Reconstruction in Gaza is scarcely possible due to the blockade (Photo: zoriah)

On her second trip to the Middle East, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called on Israel to open border crossings to Gaza and fully lift the "unacceptable" blockade imposed on the Palestinian territory.

"There are small signs of change in policy to allow goods into Gaza, but we continue to call for the opening of the crossings to enable people and goods to move around," Ms Ashton said on Sunday (18 July) while visiting a UN school in Gaza. She pledged an extra €2 million from the EU budget for schools and NGO work in Gaza.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Her return to the region, only four months after her first visit there, was aimed to "show EU support" and press the Israeli authorities on lifting a four-year blockade imposed on the Gaza strip.

Speaking after a meeting with Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, the British peer welcomed the recent ease of the blockade as "an important step forward," but stressed that the EU continues to see the embargo as "unacceptable, unsustainable and counterproductive."

Following the deadly attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on 31 May, Israel bowed to international pressure and started allowing a wider range of goods into the territory, with the exception of weapons and 'dual-use' items. It has also agreed to let construction materials into Gaza, as long as they are destined for projects under international supervision. But exports are still banned and people cannot move freely over the border.

Israel is also not willing to lift the blockade on Gaza's ports, arguing that the maritime embargo is needed to prevent the Islamist Hamas movement from shipping in military-grade weapons and long-range rockets.

Ms Ashton said she could envisage sending EU monitors to the crossings to "support a smooth handling of goods", as long as the Western-backed Palestinian Authority was also involved.

On Saturday, the EU official also met the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, to whom she pledged an extra €40 million as "direct financial support."

"What we have today is 75 percent less (volume of traffic) than what we had in the first half of 2007... That's not what we are looking for," Mr Fayyad said, according to AFP.

"The economy of Gaza cannot be sustained only by importation, there needs to be exports," he stressed.

Ms Ashton's second visit to Gaza and Israel "showed a preparedness to be more independent-minded," former British cabinet minister and EU commissioner Chris Patten told the Guardian on Sunday, during his own visit to the region.

"The default European position should not be to wait to find out what the Americans are going to do, and if the Americans don't do anything to wring our hands. We should be prepared to be more explicit in setting out Europe's objectives and doing more to try to implement them," he said.

US and EU breaking taboos to restrain Israel

The US abstained and all EU states on the UN Security Council backed a call for an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza, as Europe prepares to also blacklist extremist Israeli settlers.

EU warns Russia over Moscow terror attacks

Europe has warned Russia not to use the weekend's terror attacks in Moscow as a pretext to escalate its war in Ukraine and crackdown on internal dissent.

EU summit risks failing Gaza once again, Ireland warns

Austrians and Czechs might block an EU statement calling for an Israeli ceasefire, Ireland warned, as leaders met in Brussels amid starvation in Gaza. Israel's conduct of the war meant it had "squandered the support they had", Leo Varadkar said.

Opinion

Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Rather than assuming a pro-European Labour government in London will automatically open doors in Brussels, the Labour party needs to consider what it may be able to offer to incentivise EU leaders to factor the UK into their defence thinking.

Latest News

  1. Kenyan traders react angrily to proposed EU clothes ban
  2. Lawyer suing Frontex takes aim at 'antagonistic' judges
  3. Orban's Fidesz faces low-polling jitters ahead of EU election
  4. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  5. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  6. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  7. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  8. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us