The European Union has warned of the forced displacement of residents of the Gaza Strip, stressing the need to prevent the conflict from spreading in the region.
In an article published in the French newspaper Le Monde, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that a military solution in Gaza “will not be enough if it does not lead to a political project.”
Borrell rejected the use of “double standards” in the Gaza war, saying: “While we resort to international law in Ukraine, we cannot ignore it in Gaza.”
The EU official stressed the importance of preventing the conflict from spreading to Lebanon at any cost, alleviating the catastrophic situation in Gaza, and paving the way for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Borrell pointed to the displacement of more than 80% of the population within the Gaza Strip, adding: “The top priority now is to prevent a new forced displacement outside the Strip by default, which is illegal under international law and unacceptable morally.”
At the same time, Borrell pointed out that the entry of aid trucks into Gaza “is proceeding slowly for security reasons, and this situation must be overcome.”
In a related context, the EU member states, yesterday, included the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, on their sanctions list.
The decision orders the freezing of Sinwar’s funds and other financial assets in the EU member states, and prohibits companies and institutions operating in the bloc from providing him with money or economic resources.
On a related level, UN Secretary-General António Guterres renewed his call for an immediate humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip yesterday, stressing the need to stop the war before it escalates into a regional conflict.
Guterres, in his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, said that the two sides to the conflict in Gaza are “crushing” international law, and urged them to immediately stop the fighting for humanitarian reasons.
On another level, new developments have emerged on the surface of events in the maritime corridors of the Red Sea at the field, political, and humanitarian levels, with the targeting of American-British strikes against Houthi targets, where Washington decided to re-list the Houthis in Yemen on its list of terrorist organizations, at the time that the Houthi group threatened to expand its operations against American ships.
