EU lawmakers slam Israel over attacks on Lebanon, Gaza

ISTANBUL

Members of the European Parliament on Tuesday called for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon following Israeli airstrikes there which have injured several UN peacekeepers in recent weeks and also condemned its continuing attacks in the Gaza Strip.

As violence escalates across the Middle East, several parliamentarians expressed their concern over the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon and Gaza, calling for immediate international action.

In a session dedicated to the situation in Lebanon, Left political group members Lynn Boylan and Irene Montero urged the EU to take stronger action, including suspending its trade agreement with Israel and imposing an arms embargo.

Emphasizing that Israeli strikes on UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon violate international law, Boylan said: "Last week, the European Council condemned the attack on UNIFIL. But the question is, who attacked UNIFIL? It was the IDF (Israeli army) who attacked them, and it was deliberate."

"The EU remains the largest trading partner of a country that violates human rights on a daily basis, deliberately targets UN personnel, and wages an escalating campaign of brutality in North Gaza," the Irish politician added.

UNIFIL was established as an interim force decades ago, in 1978, to help restore peace in the region and as a confirmation of Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.

Also mentioning Israel's yearlong attacks on Gaza, Irene Montero of Spain’s left-wing Podemos party remarked: "You need to call a genocide a genocide. You need to stop the Zionist propaganda that Israel has the right to defend itself. The terrorist state of Israel will then stop bombing (Gaza) schools, hospitals, and refugee camps. They will have to stop using white phosphorus in Lebanon attacking people in hospitals."

Slovenian politician Irene Joveva said: "(Israeli Premier Benjamin) Netanyahu is to blame, but so are we or you. We need to seize support for Israel, seize weapon supply, and seize our trade deals, and only then we will have a cease-fire."

Asserting that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Jaume Asens Llodra from the Greens stressed that the borders of Ukraine are as important as the borders of Lebanon and Palestine. “This is hypocrisy. If we sanction (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, why do we not sanction Netanyahu?"

The EU has imposed massive and unprecedented sanctions against Russia in response to its war on Ukraine. Sanctions have also been imposed in relation to human rights violations and hybrid threats.

Israel dramatically escalated its massive bombing campaign across Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing more than 1,500 people, injuring over 4,500 others, and displacing more than 1 million people.

The aerial campaign is an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of its offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which Israel has killed at least 42,700 people and injured over 100,000, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.

Despite international warnings that the Middle East was on the brink of a regional war amid Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, on Oct. 1, it expanded the conflict by launching an incursion into southern Lebanon.