Member states are “strongly divided” on calls for the sale of weapons to Israel to be halted, the EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has said.
Foreign ministers from the 27 EU states are meeting to discuss the escalating conflict between Israel and Hizbullah in Lebanon, which has significantly raised tensions between Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and United Nations’ peacekeeping troops in south Lebanon.
Five peacekeepers have been injured so far and Israeli tanks broke through the main gate of a UN position on Sunday, as Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu repeated calls for peacekeepers to leave their posts.
In a statement agreed by the 27 member states, the EU expressed “grave concern” about the conflict in south Lebanon and condemned IDF attacks on the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (Unifil).
“Such attacks against UN peacekeepers constitute a grave violation of international law and are totally unacceptable. These attacks must stop immediately,” it said. The EU also called for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon in the statement on Sunday night.
There are about 360 Irish troops serving in Lebanon as part of the UN’s peacekeeping force, with Italy, France and Spain also contributing significant numbers of soldiers.
Speaking before the meeting of foreign ministers in Luxembourg, Mr Borrell said it had taken member states too long to agree to jointly condemn the attacks on Unifil forces.
The EU was “strongly divided” on calls for the sale of weapons and munitions to Israel to be halted, he said. French president Emmanuel Macron and Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez recently floated the possibility of some type of arms embargo.
The number of trucks bringing humanitarian aid into Gaza was at the lowest level since the start of the Israeli invasion a year ago, Mr Borrell said, which indicated famine was being used as an “arm of war”.
Alexander Schallenberg, Austria’s minister for international affairs, said he was very concerned for peacekeepers in south Lebanon. “We have reached out to our Israeli friends, to make our position very clear, no they will not withdraw,” he said.
Austria, along with Hungary, Germany and the Czech Republic, has been one of the EU’s most ardent supporters of Israel since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7th last year, which started the war in Gaza.
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin accused Israel of “undermining” the United Nations and its peacekeeping force. “Quite a number of our EU member states really need to stand up now on the side of what’s right, and proper and moral,” he said. The Fianna Fáil leader said the EU’s joint statement on the attacks on Unifil peacekeepers could have been much stronger.
Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, Mr Borrell said another red line had been “dangerously crossed” by the IDF, whose bombing campaign risked turning Lebanon into a “second Gaza”. None of the 27 member states believed Unifil should withdraw from south Lebanon, he said.
Mr Borrell said Ireland and Spain had again pushed for the human rights clauses in the EU’s trade association agreement with Israel to be reviewed, in light of its actions in Gaza. Reviewing whether Israel had breached the agreement was a matter for member states, rather than the European Commission, he said.
Mr Borrell said he proposed the next meeting of foreign ministers in November would examine the request from Ireland and Spain to review the association agreement.
Unrwa, the UN agency providing relief to Palestinian refugees, was facing an existential risk from draft Israeli legislation that would curtail its ability to operate, he said. Foreign ministers agreed to ask the European Commission to immediately release a future tranche of funding owed to Unrwa, to support the body, he said.
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