Even though a suspension of commercial ties between the EU and Israel remains unlikely, the publication of an internal EU paper from 2024 spelling out Israel's "war crimes" in Gaza will make it harder to claim Tel Aviv deserves to keep free-trade perks.
The EU foreign service and European Commission are currently "reviewing" whether Israel's actions merit freezing their association agreement, which helps it sell some €15bn a year of arms, wine, cosmetics, and other items to Europe on preferential terms.
Diplomats expect them to complete the process by 23 June, when EU foreign ministers hold one of their last meetings before the summer recess.
Civil society groups and some EU countries, such as Ireland and Spain, have been demanding to suspend the EU-Israel pact for over a year.
But the EU commission, led by German conservative Ursula von der Leyen, has so far shied away from holding Israel accountable, posing a risk their review will come to weak conclusions. And in the European Parliament, only a small group of MEPs has called for the suspension.
The EU foreign service, for its part, declined to tell EUobserver whether its review would even be made public.
"No comment on the process," it said.
But a human rights cell in the EU foreign service already audited Israel's actions on 11 November 2024, in a closely guarded, 35-page internal survey, ordered by the then EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell.
Isolated quotes from the 2024 report were first published by US news website The Intercept last December.
But EUobserver's sources agreed to now publish the earlier report in full for the first time, to show exactly what von der Leyen and her officials already have in their inboxes as established EU facts on the Gaza war.
And the earlier report is so damning, it would make a mockery of the EU if it were to say on 23 June that Israel had not broken article 2 of the association agreement on human-rights compliance.
Article 2 states: "Relations between the parties [EU and Israel], as well as all the provisions of the agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles."
The 2024 EU paper said it "does not include any value judgment by … the EU", but still said Israel was "in violation of the fundamental principles of IHL [international humanitarian law]" by killing tens of thousands of women and children.
It also spoke of Israel's "use [of] starvation as a method of warfare, which … constitute[s] atrocity crimes", using authoritative sources, such as findings by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and rulings by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
"The evidence is so overwhelming the EU would make a joke of itself if it were to say Israel was in compliance with article 2 or with the laws of war," said Claudio Francavilla from Human Rights Watch (HRW).
It would also amount to the EU "trashing the whole UN system and the world court" if Brussels now rejected the factuality of the OHCHR and ICJ findings it had earlier quoted, he added.
H.A. Hellyer from a British think-tank, the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said: "The [leaked] document makes it abundantly clear that the EU recognised quite some time ago that abuses were taking place, and yet avoided taking actions that are mandated by its own rules".
"The most disturbing aspect of this document is that EU officials have, for a long time, been continuously well aware of various abuses, violations, and even likely war crimes … [but] have utterly failed to take measures to tackle this", he added.
And Israeli violations since November 2024 have only become worse.
Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said on 16 May that Israeli actions in Gaza were "tantamount to ethnic cleansing", for instance.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory also said on 13 March, for example, that the Israeli army was guilty of "the crime against humanity of extermination" of Gaza civilians, as well as "sexual and gender-based violence" against Palestinian women and children, which "amounted to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment".
And that is not to include Israeli abuses in the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria, which the UN has also chronicled and which also relate to the EU's article 2 decision.
But even if the new EU foreign service review says in black-and-white that Israel has violated the association pact, there is no guarantee that EU capitals will agree to take action.
Suspending the whole Israel association agreement would require unanimity in the EU Council, where Israel's staunchest EU ally, Hungary, is expected to veto such a move, EU diplomats told this website.
Suspending just the trade part of the accord, costing Israel some €1bn/year according to estimates by civil society groups, would require a qualified majority vote — but that also meant that either Germany or Italy would have to turn against Israel for the vote to pass.
Neither the Israeli-friendly Germany nor Italy joined the 17 EU countries who called for the article 2 review on 20 May.
The EU has already lost credibility in the Global South and in the eyes of its own general public by giving Israel a free pass on Gaza.
And the past 20 months of sanctions-free EU diplomacy has achieved "nothing", said HRW's Francavilla.
If anything, "Israel has done exactly the opposite" of what the UN, ICJ, and EU have been calling for, he added.
If the forthcoming EU review "makes a clear-cut, unequivocal determination that Israel was guilty of war crimes … it will be much harder for Germany and Italy to ignore," he added.
But if Israel let in more aid to Gaza in the run-up to 23 June, prompting the EU to decide this was enough to let it off the hook, that would be a "nightmare scenario and incredible demonstration of political stupidity", Francavilla continued.
Rusi's Hellyer also said: "It would cause substantial damage to the EU's credibility worldwide on issues of human rights".
Hugh Lovatt, a Middle East expert in London at the European Council on Foreign Affairs think-tank, told this website: "The biggest risk is that the EU commission draws out the review process and ultimately does not make a conclusion on article 2, leaving it to member states to decide".
"That is certainly one outcome being speculated in private amongst [EU] officials," he said.
"With regard to Germany and Italy — Israeli actions in Gaza are driving growing and, in the German context, unprecedented criticism of Israel," Lovatt noted.
"They are currently hoping to moderate Israeli actions in Gaza and arguing in favour of engagement to neutralise the article 2 review," he said.
"But the more Israel's destruction of Gaza continues, the more likely it is Berlin and Rome will support, or at least not oppose, meaningful EU action", Lovatt added.
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.
Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.