GENEVA,(Palestine Foundation Information Center) The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has sharply criticized the European Union (EU)’s failure to take decisive action against Israel’s ongoing attacks on the Gaza Strip, calling this inaction a “serious breach of its international legal obligations, including its duty to prevent Israel’s genocide and hold it accountable.
“Such a failure strips the EU of any legal or moral credibility in its professed commitment to justice and human rights, while undermining the principles of accountability and the foundations of the international system,” Euro-Med said in a press release on Wednesday.
“During the recent Foreign Affairs Council meeting, the EU’s 27 foreign ministers agreed to ‘keep a close watch’ on Israel’s adherence to a recent agreement to improve humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, while delaying discussion of 10 proposed response options to Israel’s actions in the enclave,” Euro-Med underlined.
“This position reflects a glaring lack of political will to apply meaningful pressure and highlights the persistent complicity of many member states, effectively granting Israel a green light to continue targeting civilians and destroying their means of survival,” Euro-Med added.
“The EU’s repeated calls to ‘improve the humanitarian situation on the ground’ are a blatant attempt to whitewash the image of the Israeli occupation, especially in the absence of any concrete or credible measures to fully open the crossings or guarantee a sufficient and safe flow of aid. This approach reflects more than mere inaction; it constitutes active complicity in engineering starvation. It also mirrors the bloody role of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose aid distribution centers have become sites of mass killing,” Euro-Med elaborated.
“At a time when entire families are being wiped out, dozens of children are killed daily, and a full-scale genocide is being carried out against a defenseless population, the EU’s limited focus on sending food aid to Gaza amounts to a blatant betrayal of humanity and a failure to uphold its legal and moral responsibility to stop one of the gravest crimes of our time and ensure accountability for its perpetrators,” Lima Bustami, director of Euro-Med Monitor’s Legal Department, said.
“Reducing this horror to a temporary humanitarian crisis or a logistical matter of truck counts and crossing points exposes the emptiness of European rhetoric on values, dignity, and human rights. It reveals the EU’s actual position as not merely passive, but actively complicit in fuelling the machinery of killing and destruction,” Bustami highlighted.
“Gaza is not facing a food crisis, but a deliberate project of starvation, uprooting, and eradication,” Bustami stressed. “What is needed now is not merely an improvement in humanitarian conditions, but a principled political stance that defends what remains of the legitimacy of the international system, prioritizes human life over political expediency, and is willing to bear a cost that is trivial compared to the obligation to protect an entire people from genocide.”
“It also requires an end to the illegal occupation and apartheid regime, the prosecution of those responsible, and the dismantling of the deep-rooted structures of oppression imposed on Palestinians for decades. This duty rests not only with the EU as a whole but with each individual member state, even in the absence of a unified position,” Bustami added.
“Through both action and inaction, European governments continue to provide political and legal cover for Israel’s violations, despite internal assessments and public statements recognizing serious breaches of international humanitarian law, including acts that may amount to genocide,” Euro-Med said.
Euro-Med urged the EU to adopt a comprehensive strategy including arms embargoes, suspension of agreements, sanctions on Israeli officials, and recognition of Palestinian statehood.
The group also called for supporting international justice efforts, such as the International Criminal Court prosecutions, and for member states to use “universal jurisdiction” to hold perpetrators accountable.
