The escalation of violence between Israel and the Islamist militant group Hamas has prompted discussions in Brussels over aid programmes for the Palestinian people, write Agerpres. The EU has strongly condemned the attack by Hamas on Israel but has sent out mixed messages over the future of its development aid to the Palestinians.

The EU is trying to regroup on the issue of aid to the Palestinian people. There is consensus on the following points: support for the Palestinian National Authority is to continue, and Israel must defend itself but respect international law.

On Saturday, Hamas militants stormed Israel’s border around the Gaza enclave and launched attacks on civilian and military targets, leaving more than 1,200 dead by Wednesday. Israel has responded with artillery and air strikes, and Gaza officials estimate more than 900 Palestinian casualties after five days of ferocious fighting.

On Monday evening, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had to qualify announcements on the freezing of development assistance payments. Contrary to Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi’s initial announcement on Monday that all payments would be suspended immediately, the Commission corrected itself by announcing it would review aid payments to the Palestinians.

The bloc planned to support the Palestinian people with 1.18 billion euros for the period 2021 to 2024, a press release said.

Commission representatives said it had been agreed not to disburse any funds until the completion of a review of aid. ‘Our humanitarian support to the Palestinian people is not in question. Yet it is important that we carefully review our financial assistance for Palestine,’ von der Leyen said. ‘EU funding has never and will never go to Hamas or any terrorist entity.’

The US, the EU and Israel designate Hamas as a terrorist group. There were no payments foreseen at the moment and the review would not concern humanitarian assistance for Palestinians, a Commission press release said.

On Wednesday, Von der Leyen declared that Hamas’s killing of Israeli civilians was a cold-blooded act of war and reflected an ‘ancient evil.’ She said: ‘We have to be clear in defining this kind of horror. And there can only be one response to it. Europe stands with Israel. And we fully support Israel’s right to defend itself.’

Majority of EU countries against freezing aid for Palestinian people
The representatives of the 27 EU countries held emergency talks on Tuesday after the surprise attack by Hamas and as Israel unleashed a reprisal bombing campaign of Gaza. During the informal consultations among EU foreign ministers, an overwhelming majority of European Union countries rejected a proposed freeze on payments to the Palestinian Authority, said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

‘Not all the Palestinian people are terrorists,’ Borrell said after talks with EU foreign ministers in Oman and via videoconference. ‘A collective punishment against all Palestinians will be unfair, and unproductive. It will be against our interest and against the interest of peace.’

France was ‘not in favour of suspending aid that directly benefits the Palestinian people’, the French Foreign Ministry said. France contributed 95 million euros in aid to the Palestinians last year.

The acting Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, criticised the initial response of Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi. He also regretted the EU’s aid review as it seemed to imply that the EU has been financing a terrorist organisation ‘for years.’ He stressed that ‘there is no evidence that this funding has not been used for the purposes for which it is intended.’

On Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called for sustained humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territories, a day after Berlin said it was suspending development assistance. She also urged the Palestinian Authority to distance itself ‘from this terror’ after the Hamas assault on Israel, adding that ‘it cannot be justified. As the Palestinian Authority you have a duty, also to your own people.’ On Thursday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said all development aid with the Palestinian Territories was being put under review.

Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Antonio Tajani said the review was a result of the new circumstances and that ‘there should be no misuse of these funds.’

The United States said on Tuesday it welcomed EU support for continuing development aid to the Palestinian people. ‘They did reverse that, which is a step that we welcome. We have made very clear that we do not have any grievance with the Palestinian people,’ US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

EU opposes total siege of Gaza, says Borrell
EU foreign ministers also urged Israel not to cut ‘water, food, or electricity’ to Gaza and called for humanitarian corridors for those trying to flee the territory, the bloc’s foreign policy chief said. The European ministers insisted on the need for ‘respect of international humanitarian law,’ Josep Borrell said.

‘Israel has the right to defend (itself) but it has to be done accordingly with international law, humanitarian law, and some decisions are contrary to this international law,’ Borrell told journalists in Oman’s capital Muscat. He said the EU meeting called for ‘humanitarian corridors to facilitate people who have to escape the bombing of Gaza’ across the border to Egypt.

Borrell had also invited Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and his Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki to an emergency meeting of top diplomats on Tuesday. Later, Borrell said that neither the Israeli foreign minister nor his Palestinian counterpart took up an invitation to address the EU meeting