Israeli, Palestinian foreign ministers to attend EU meeting
It would be the first time since the Gaza war began in October 2023 that Israeli and Palestinian ministers attended a high-level meeting in the same room.
The office for Israel's foreign minister said that alongside the ministerial meeting, Gideon Saar would hold talks with the EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas and the bloc's Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica. Saar is also expected to meet with foreign ministers on the sidelines of the event, the statement added.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) confirmed the attendance of foreign minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin but denied media reports that any meeting with Saar was on the agenda.
A statement said that Shahin would give a speech 'focusing on the suffering of the Palestinian people under the ongoing war of extermination and displacement in the Gaza Strip, the systematic starvation policy practiced by the occupying state, and the financial blockade imposed on the Palestinian government.'
It said she would also address the situation in the occupied West Bank, where violence is surging and Israel is waging a months-long military operation in the north that has displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians.
The foreign ministry said Shahin was scheduled to hold meetings with Kallas and a number of European foreign ministers.
'The minister will demand an immediate halt to the crimes of genocide, displacement and annexation, and to compel the Israeli government to comply with the international will for peace and open a political negotiation process to end the occupation and enable our people to exercise their right to self-determination,' the statement said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
23 minutes ago
- Arab News
Belgian king denounces Gaza abuses in unusually direct remarks
BRUSSELS: Belgium's King Philippe described abuses in Gaza as a 'disgrace to humanity' in a speech on the eve of Monday's national day, unusually direct remarks on international affairs from a monarch who traditionally avoids public politics. 'I add my voice to all those who denounce the serious humanitarian abuses in Gaza, where innocent people are dying of hunger and being killed by bombs while trapped in their enclaves,' he said speaking at his palace in Brussels. 'The current situation has gone on for far too long. It is a disgrace to all of humanity. We support the call by the United Nations Secretary-General to immediately end this unbearable crisis.' It was the first time Philippe has spoken out so strongly and unambiguously about a conflict in public. Belgium's federal government has been more reserved in its criticism of the conflict in Gaza. The king's role in Belgium is limited to giving advice, support, and warnings to the government without making any political decisions. Israel launched its assault on Gaza following an October 2023 attack on Israeli towns by Hamas-led fighters who killed 1,200 people and captured 251 hostages. Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 59,000 people in Gaza, according to health officials there. Much of the territory has been laid to waste and Israel has restricted food and other supplies. Israel denies that its forces commit abuses in Gaza and says restrictions on supplies are needed to prevent aid from being diverted by militants.
Arab News
23 minutes ago
- Arab News
UK, France and other nations call for an immediate end to war in Gaza
LONDON: Britain and more than 20 other countries called on Monday for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and criticized the Israeli government's aid delivery model after hundreds of Palestinians were killed near sites distributing food. France, Italy, Japan, Australia, Canada, Denmark and other countries said more than 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid and condemned what it called the 'drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians.' The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites, which the United States and Israel backed to take over aid distribution in Gaza from a network led by the United Nations. 'The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,' the countries' foreign ministers said in a joint statement. The call for an end to the war and the way Israel delivers aid comes from several countries which are allied with Israel and its most important backer, the United States. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the accusation. The UN has called the GHF's model unsafe and a breach of humanitarian impartiality standards, which GHF denies.
Arab News
23 minutes ago
- Arab News
Israel's annexation playbook and the looming explosion
Israel is meticulously following a textbook model of instigating unrest in the West Bank. The latest provocation consisted of stripping the Palestinian-run Hebron municipality of its administrative powers over the venerable Ibrahimi Mosque. Worse, according to Israel Hayom, it transferred these powers to the religious council of the Kiryat Arba Jewish settlement, an extremist settler body. Though all Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories can be qualified as extremists, the approximately 7,500 inhabitants of Kiryat Arba represent a more virulent category. This settlement, established in 1972, serves as a strategic foothold to justify subjecting Hebron to stricter military control than virtually any other part of the West Bank. Kiryat Arba is infamously linked to Baruch Goldstein, the US-Israeli settler who, in February 1994, unleashed a horrific attack. He opened fire at Muslim worshippers as they knelt for dawn prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque, mercilessly killing 29. This bloodbath was swiftly followed by another, with the Israeli army brutally cracking down on Palestinian protesters in Hebron and across the West Bank, murdering an additional 25 Palestinians. In 1994, Israel decided that the Palestinian mosque, a site of profound religious significance, should be grotesquely divided: 63 percent allocated to Jewish worshippers and a mere 37 percent to Palestinian Muslims. Since that calamitous decision, oppressive restrictions have been systematically imposed. These include pervasive surveillance and, at times, unjustifiable, extended closures of the site, leaving it solely for settler use. The Ibrahimi Mosque is a microcosm of something far more sinister that is underway across the West Bank Dr. Ramzy Baroud The latest decision, described by Israel Hayom as 'historic and unprecedented,' is profoundly dangerous. It places the fate of this historic Palestinian mosque directly in the hands of those fanatically keen on acquiring the holy site in its entirety. But the Ibrahimi Mosque is merely a microcosm of something far more sinister that is underway across the West Bank. Israel has exploited its war in Gaza to dramatically escalate its violence, carry out mass arrests, confiscate vast tracts of land, systematically destroy Palestinian farms and orchards, and aggressively expand illegal settlements. Though the West Bank, previously largely subdued by joint Israeli military pressure and Palestinian Authority crackdowns, was not a direct party to the Oct. 7, 2023, assault or the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, it has inexplicably become a major focus for Israeli military measures. In the first year of the war, more than 10,400 Palestinians were detained in Israeli army crackdowns, with thousands held without charge. Furthermore, hundreds of Palestinians have been forcibly ethnically cleansed, largely from the northern West Bank, where entire refugee camps and towns have been systematically destroyed in protracted military campaigns. Israel's overarching aim remains the strangulation of the West Bank. This is achieved by severing communities using ubiquitous military checkpoints, imposing total closures of vast regions and cruelly suspending work permits for Palestinian laborers, who are almost entirely dependent on the Israeli jobs market for survival. This insidious plan also explicitly targets all Palestinian holy sites, including the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem and the Ibrahimi Mosque. Even when these shrines were nominally accessible, age restrictions and suffocating military checkpoints make it difficult, at times utterly impossible, for Palestinians to worship there. In August 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that his relentless violent campaign against the West Bank was part of Israel's confrontation of the 'broader Iran terror axis.' Practically, this statement served as a green light for the Israeli army to treat the West Bank as an extension of its ongoing genocide in Gaza. By the middle of this month, more than 900 Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli army in the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023, with at least another 15 murdered by settlers. Israel's actions are not a sudden deviation but are consistent with a long-standing, insidious scheme Dr. Ramzy Baroud As Palestinians were pushed further against the wall, with no centralized strategy by their leadership to meaningfully resist, Israel exponentially increased its illegal settlement construction and brazen legalization of numerous outposts, many built illegally even by Israeli government standards. Israel's actions in the West Bank are not a sudden deviation but are consistent with a long-standing, insidious scheme. This includes a plan solidified by the Knesset in 2020 that 'allows' Israel to officially annex the West Bank. Israel's ultimate goal has always been to confine the majority of Palestinians to Bantustan-like enclaves, while asserting full control over the vast majority of the region. In August 2023, extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir articulated this sinister vision: 'My right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs.' More coercive measures swiftly followed, including Knesset laws to significantly curtail UNRWA operations and further legislation to entrench de facto annexation. In May, Smotrich audaciously announced 22 more settlements. On July 2, 14 Israeli ministers made a public call on Netanyahu to immediately annex the West Bank. In fact, every action Israel has undertaken, especially since the commencement of its devastating genocide in Gaza, has been carefully calculated to culminate in the irreversible annexation of the West Bank — a process that would inevitably be followed by declaring native inhabitants personae non gratae in their own homeland. This level of systemic pressure and oppression will ultimately lead to a popular explosion. Though suppressed by the brutality of the Israeli army, the terror of armed settlers and the suppressive actions of the PA, the breaking point is fast approaching. Those in the West who preach hollow calls for calm and de-escalation must understand that the region is hurtling toward the brink. Neither diplomatic platitudes nor sterile press releases will avert the catastrophe. They are advised to act decisively against Israel's destructive policies — and they must act immediately.
