Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 27: Even as exchanges of hostages and prisoners continued between Hamas and Israel during the short breather in war, the European Union’s (EU) top diplomat Josep Borrell has called the idea of Israel planning further illegal settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territories “appalling” and Israel’s biggest security liability.
He also called for an extension of the current four-day ceasefire for a longer lasting period to provide time for a political solution to the disputes. Israel offered ceasefire is due to expire on Monday.
“I’m appalled to learn that in the middle of a war, the Israeli government is poised to commit new funds to build more illegal settlements,” Mr Borrell wrote on Monday on X. “This is not self-defence and will not make Israel safer,” Mr Borrell said, adding that the settlements were a grave breach of international humanitarian law and Israel’s greatest security liability.
Speaking at the Union for the Mediterranean conference in Barcelona on Monday, Mr Borrell referred to a figure of $43 million that he said Israel planned to use for building new settlements. “The violence spread by extremist settlers in the West Bank, many times under protection from the Israeli police and military, does not make Israel safer,” he said.
The Foreign Minister said the “indiscriminate brutality” of Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 could not be justified. However, he said the death toll in Gaza, which included more than 5,000 children, was “highly disproportionate.”
Describing the four day Israel-Hamas ceasefire from November 24-27 as “an important first step,” Mr Borrell said, “The pause should be extended to make it sustainable and long-lasting while working for a political solution.” The EU is the largest foreign aid donor to the Palestinian Territories.
The Barcelona meeting was attend by various foreign ministers from the EU, West Asia and North Africa, including the Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki. Israel was not represented at the meeting. Mr Borrell said he regretted Israel’s absence.
Meanwhile, the displaced Gazans cramped in makeshift tents, schools and other temporary shelters were seen trying to overcome the pains through trips to the beach to enjoy the short truce. But while some children were seen splashing water and ride above the waves, the elderly people could hardly forgot the hardships of the war and the shock of homelessness.
Asmaa al-Sultan, a displaced woman from northern Gaza, sat on the sand with her arm around her mother. The older woman was crying quietly. “We came to the beach to take a breather, to escape from the feeling of the crowded schools and from the depressing and polluted environment we are in,” said Asmaa. “People come to the beach to relax, to swim, for their children to have fun, they take food with them. But we are so depressed. We are on the beach but we want to cry.”
Hundreds of thousands of people have left their homes in northern Gaza, which has borne the brunt of Israel’s military assault, to seek refuge in tents, schools or the homes of friends and relatives in the southern part of the strip. The gruelling conditions in the tent camps and schools, with overcrowding, a dearth of toilets and showers, and long daily queues for small rations of food and water, have been compounded by the psychological impact of bombardment and displacement.
While some displaced people have seized the opportunity of the four-day truce, which began on Friday, to check on their homes, others have been too fearful to return to the north, much of which has been reduced to a wasteland. “We are afraid about the end of these four days. We don’t know what will happen to us next,” said Hazem al-Sultan, Asmaa’s husband.
He said they and their relatives had not dared to head north for fear of being shot at by Israeli soldiers, and had no idea what state their homes might be in. “We are afraid for our children, for ourselves, and we don’t know what to do,” he said.