CHANGES HEADLINE, DECK, ADDS MORE REMARKS FROM EU FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF
By Nur Asena Erturk
Recalling the US warning to Israel to improve humanitarian situation in the besieged Gaza Strip, the EU foreign policy chief Thursday slammed Washington for giving another month to Israel while "too many people" are being killed there.
“They gave one-month delay” during which “too many people” would be killed, Josep Borrell told reporters at the doorstep of the EU Council meeting in Brussels.
A recent letter from US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza in the next month, or risk an American arms embargo.
Borrell further said the United Nations is being "attacked on all fronts by the Israeli government," hoping that: "The council will strongly condemn the attacks of the Israeli forces against UNIFIL.”
Israel has injured UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) members in separate recent attacks, drawing international criticism as deliberate attacks on peacekeepers are against international law.
The United Nations is being attacked on all fronts by the Israeli government, UN chief Guterres is being considered anti-Semitic, UNRWA is being considered a terrorist organization and being banned inside the Israeli territory, and all the United Nations system is being attacked, the EU official added.
Borrell earlier this week criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to withdraw UNIFIL troops.
UNIFIL was established in March 1978 to confirm Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon and assist the Lebanese government in restoring authority in the area. Its mandate has been expanded over the years, particularly after the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war, to monitor cease-fires and facilitate humanitarian aid.
Its mandate was last renewed unanimously by the UN Security Council in August.
UNRWA has been hindered from doing its job since January 2024, when Israel accused 12 of its thousands of employees in Gaza of being involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Amid a probe of the claims, at least 16 countries, including the US, paused or suspended funding to the agency, and its aid work for Gaza’s famine-stricken population has suffered. But most of the key donors resumed aid after an independent review of UNRWA found that Israel had not provided any evidence to back its claims.
UNRWA was created by the UN General Assembly more than 70 years ago to assist Palestinians who were forcibly displaced from their land.
Israel dramatically escalated its massive bombing campaign across Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing at least 1,437 people, injuring over 4,123 others, and displacing more than 1.34 million people.
The aerial campaign is an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of Israel's war on the Gaza Strip. More than 42,400 people, most of them women and children, have been killed since the war began in the wake of Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack on Israel.
Israel began its ground invasion of Lebanon on Oct. 1.