EU’s High Representative Kaja Kallas announced last Thursday that following a constructive dialogue between the EU and Israel, significant steps had been “agreed by Israel” to improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip but the announcement left important questions unanswered.
In the announcement, she listed a number of measures that will be implemented in the coming days and that included, among others, the “substantial increase of daily trucks” for food and non- food items to enter Gaza, the opening of several other crossing points “in both the northern and southern areas”; and the reopening of the Jordanian and Egyptian aid routes.
About simultaneously, the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs issued a brief statement following foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar’s trilateral meeting in Vienna with the Austrian and German foreign ministers where he referred to his dialogue with the EU.
The statement said that, “Our Security Cabinet made further decisions last Sunday to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza. And they include more trucks, more crossings and more routes for the humanitarian efforts.”
Neither statement included any figures. The decision on an increase in humanitarian aid, which was negotiated by EU’s newly appointed special representative (EUSR) for the Middle East Peace Process, French diplomat Christophe Bigot, existed only verbally last week and was not published for fear of the negative opinion in Israel.
This did not come as a surprise. The extremist ministers in the government oppose increasing the humanitarian aid into Gaza as long as Hamas is still in power there.
The defence minister has floated the idea of displacing all Palestinians to a “humanitarian city” in the south of the Gaza Strip at the border with Egypt, where all aid would be distributed and from which they would be encouraged to “voluntarily” emigrate. This would contradict any agreement which could have been reached with the EU.
Asked explicitly last Friday if the agreement had been signed, EU spokespersons declined to confirm if that was the case and replied that it had been “reached” with Israel.
Diplomatic dialogue
A spokesperson for EU foreign affairs confirmed that the agreement was the result of the dialogue launched by the High Representative after the foreign affairs council meeting in June and gave the credit to a team on the ground led by Bigot. He added that the EU counts on Israel to implement every measure in the agreement.
At a technical briefing on Friday, ahead of the foreign affairs council on Tuesday (15 July), a high-ranking EU official also described the agreement as the outcome of EU’s successful diplomatic outreach to improve the situation on the ground in Gaza as this was the most urgent thing to do. “The best guarantee for the implementation of the agreement is that the aid into Gaza is increasing.”
Asked when the increased aid will start entering Gaza, the EU official referred to the announcement (“coming days”). It could mean by Tuesday when the foreign affairs council meeting will take place. At the meeting, Kaja Kallas will debrief the EU foreign minister on her diplomatic engagement with Israel and continue the discussion about the review of the EU – Israel Association agreement.
According to Kallas’ press remarks after the previous foreign affairs council meeting, a majority of the EU Member States wanted her to contact the Israeli government and look at how the situation on the ground could be improved before taking any decision on suspending the association agreement. Some Member States want also to impose sanctions on extremist ministers and not only violent settlers.
Non-binding understanding
A diplomatic source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the Brussels Times on Sunday that there is no agreement in the formal sense of the word and that nothing has been signed. He described the process as a dialogue where the EU and Israel listened to each other and reached an understanding about increasing the aid to Gaza.
The dialogue followed an Israeli security cabinet meeting a week ago where the cabinet decided to adopt a number of recommendations proposed by the agency which coordinates the government activities in the occupied territories (COGAT). Some steps have already been taken according to the source.
UN agencies are reporting starvation and widespread malnutrition in Gaza. Some details and figures about the amount of humanitarian aid were disclosed on Sunday. Israel will allow the daily entry of 160 trucks with aid, a figure which will increase to 250. It is significantly more than now but far below what entered before the war or after the previous ceasefire-hostage deal last January.
Two more border crossings will be opened in central Gaza but nothing has been said about reopening the Jordanian and Egyptian aid routes. Fuel and electricity deliveries to run hospitals and the water desalination facility in Gaza will be resumed as mentioned in the EU announcement. Bakeries that were supported by the World Food Programme will become operational again.
Deadlock in ceasefire talks
It is not clear who will deliver the aid into Gaza and distribute it there according to international humanitarian principles while ensuring that there is no aid diversion to Hamas. The EU wants the aid to be distributed by UN agencies, including the agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and international NGOs, and not the American-led Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
This seems not have been part of the understanding with Israel. According to media reports, the distribution of aid by GHF has been chaotic. An UN Human Rights Spokesperson (OHCHR) said on Friday that ca 800 Palestinians have killed since May while trying to collect aid distributed by GHF as well as around routes of other aid convoys. About 600 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites.
Another issue is if the implementation of what was agreed between the EU and Israel is conditional on a ceasefire-hostage deal but these appear to be two different things. A ceasefire deal would lead to the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid at scale, the release of the Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian security prisoners, and probably to a permanent end to the war.
Unfortunately, the hopes for an imminent 60-days long ceasefire – hostage deal between Israel and Hamas have been dashed as the proximity talks currently taking place in Doha, Qatar, have reached a deadlock. The main point of contention is about the positions to which the Israeli troops will withdraw. In the meantime, the military operations and destruction of the northern part of the Gaza Strip continues.
