The 27 EU nations have jointly condemned Hamas for what they described as the use of hospitals and civilians as “human shields” in the war against Israel.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell yesterday said that at the same time, the bloc asked Israel “for maximum restraint in targeting in order to avoid human casualties.”
At a meeting of the bloc’s foreign affairs ministers, Borrell brandished a statement he issued on behalf of the 27 nations as a show of unity following weeks of often contrasting statements on how the group should address the Israel-Hamas war.
Photo: AFP
Only hours after EU leaders professed unity over the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 28, the member states were totally split in a vote on a UN General Assembly resolution calling for humanitarian truces in Gaza leading to a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas.
Now, however, the EU nations said in a statement they join “calls for immediate pauses in hostilities and the establishment of humanitarian corridors, including through increased capacity at border crossings and through a dedicated maritime route, so that humanitarian aid can safely reach the population of Gaza.”
They also reiterated their “call on Hamas for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. It is crucial that the International Committee of the Red Cross is granted access to the hostages.”
Moreover, as a key tenent, it said that “the EU condemns the use of hospitals and civilians as human shields by Hamas.”
In Gaza, thousands of people have fled its largest hospital as Israeli forces and Palestinian militants battle outside its gates, but hundreds of patients, including dozens of babies at risk of dying because of a power blackout, remained inside, health officials said yesterday.
With only intermittent communications, it was difficult to reconcile competing claims from the Israeli military, which said it was providing safe corridors for people to escape intense fighting in the north and move south, and Palestinian health officials inside Shifa Hospital, who said the compound was surrounded by constant heavy gunfire.
The Israeli military also said it had placed 300 liters of fuel near the hospital to help power its generators, but that Hamas militants had prevented staff from reaching it.
The health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza disputed that and said the fuel would have provided less than an hour of electricity.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on social media that Shifa has been without water for three days and “is not functioning as a hospital anymore.”
In other developments, at least eight pro-Iran fighters were killed in US strikes on eastern Syria, a war monitor said yesterday.
The toll is “eight pro-Iran fighters dead, including at least one Syrian, and Iraqi nationals,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, following the strikes late on Sunday on the Mayadeen and Albu Kamal areas of Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor province near the Iraqi border.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the US had carried out strikes against two Iran-linked sites in Syria in response to attacks on US forces.
It was the third time in less than three weeks that the US military has targeted locations in Syria it said were tied to Iran.
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