The European Union foreign policy chief has warned that Israeli forces have opened a new front with a clear objective of turning the occupied West Bank into a “new Gaza.”
Addressing the Arab League in Cairo on Tuesday, Josep Borrell said Israel was opening “a new front… with a clear objective: to turn the West Bank into a new Gaza -– in rising violence, delegitimizing the Palestinian Authority and stimulating provocations to react forcefully.”
The top EU diplomat said “without action of the international community, the West Bank will become a new Gaza.” “Without action, the West Bank will become a new Gaza,” he told the meeting. “And Gaza will become a new West Bank, as settlers’ movements are preparing new settlements,” Borrell said.
Israel was also “not shying away from saying to the face of the world that the only way to reach a peaceful settlement is to annex the West Bank and Gaza,” he said. Borrell accused “radical members of the Israeli government” of trying to make it “impossible to create a future Palestinian state.”
“The international community deplores, feels, and condemns, but finds it hard to act.”
Some Israeli ministers have recently called for ramping up military assaults in the occupied West Bank.
Rights groups have warned of escalating violence in the West Bank and the use of tactics by Israeli forces that the world has witnessed in its war on Gaza. Dozens of Palestinians were killed after the Israeli occupation forces recently launched the largest military onslaught in two decades on the West Bank.
