EU Commission halts payments to Israel

Brussels (dpa) — The European Commission is suspending all payments to Israel over the country’s conduct in the Gaza Strip, President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday.

“We will put our bilateral support to Israel on hold. We will stop all payments in these areas without affecting our work with civil society or [Holocaust memorial] Yad Vashem,” she said in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

She added: “We will propose sanctions on the extremist ministers and on violent settlers.”

“Man-made famine can never be a weapon of war. For the sake of the children, for the sake of humanity, this must stop. … what is happening in Gaza is unacceptable and … Europe must lead the way just as it has done before,” she said

She also proposed “a partial suspension” of the so-called Association Agreement which has underpinned political and economic relations between the two sides since 2000.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, with the stated aim of destroying the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, was triggered by the terrorist attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which left around 1,200 people dead and more than 250 hostages abducted.

Since then, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority in the Gaza Strip, more than 64,500 Palestinians have been killed in the densely populated coastal zone, and most buildings there have been destroyed.