BRUSSELS — A top European Union official described Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide, the strongest condemnation yet to come out of Brussels.
Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s executive vice president, also said Europe was too divided to do anything about the starvation, displacement and killing of Palestinians.
“The genocide in Gaza exposes Europe’s failure to act and speak with one voice, even as protests spread across European cities and 14 U.N. Security Council members call for an immediate ceasefire,” Ribera told students at Sciences Po in a speech Thursday morning.
The Spanish commissioner has been one of the fiercest critics in Brussels of Israel’s assault on Gaza. This speech, however, marks the first time Ribera explicitly described the situation as genocide.
Her remarks come as Israel faces growing international condemnation, including from many of its traditional allies, ahead of this month’s United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.
Belgium this week said it will join a group of countries that will recognize the state of Palestine at the U.N. General Assembly and will impose sanctions on Israel over the war in Gaza. In July, French President Emmanuel Macron said France would recognize a Palestinian state at the U.N. meeting, and more than a dozen other Western countries have said they would do the same.
Ireland and Ribera’s home country of Spain formally recognized Palestine in 2024.
The EU, however, has remained split on whether to sanction Israel, with countries such as Germany and Hungary rejecting calls to suspend the EU’s trade agreement with the country.
The European Commission as an institution and most EU governments have so far avoided using the word genocide, which in legal terms describes actions to destroy a people in whole or in part. A case at the International Court of Justice, brought by South Africa against Israel, is ongoing.
Earlier this week, the world’s leading genocide scholars passed a resolution stating that Israel’s actions meet the legal definition of the term.
Israel has denied the allegation of genocide. The Israeli government says its actions in Gaza are self-defense in response to Hamas killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, on Oct. 7, 2023.
Ribera has previously expressed frustration over the EU’s inaction on Gaza. In an interview with POLITICO last month, she called on the bloc to consider suspending its Association Agreement with Israel, suggesting that countries opposed to this should simply abstain.
Her speech at Sciences Po did not go into detail on what the bloc should do, with the commissioner going on to talk about Russia’s war in Ukraine, geopolitical tensions and climate change.
But she said: “All of these things are not just sectoral or individual threats but also challenges to the fundamental freedoms and rights upon which our societies and the relations among us have been built,” adding: “Staying silent in the face of injustice … should not be something to accept.”
The European Commission did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
This article has been updated
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