Belgium’s King Philippe said Europe “must show stronger leadership” on the crisis in Gaza, adding that “the current situation has gone on far too long” and “is a disgrace to humanity.”
Belgium’s head of state made the comments in a speech on Sunday ahead of the country’s July 21 national holiday. He said Belgium supports a call by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ for “an immediate end to this unbearable crisis.”
At least 73 people were killed on Sunday while attempting to obtain aid across Gaza, the enclave’s health ministry said, scores of them at the Zikim crossing with Israel in the north of the territory. More than 150 people were reportedly wounded.
That followed the deaths of at least 32 people on Saturday as witnesses said Israeli troops shot at Palestinians seeking food from distribution outlets run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The group is backed by the U.S. and Israel and has led humanitarian efforts in Gaza since May, but according to the United Nations human rights office, 674 people have been killed near its distribution sites as of July 13.
Pope Leo XIV added his voice to the outcry on Sunday, saying after a prayer ceremony that “I once again call for an immediate end to the barbarity of this war.” The previous Thursday, Israeli shelling hit the only Catholic church in Gaza, killing three and prompting the pope to call for “the prohibition of collective punishment [and] the indiscriminate use of force.”
The weekend violence in Gaza did not draw a public response from the EU’s top brass, however. On the previous Tuesday, EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels had declined to sanction Israel over its conduct in the war despite a human rights situation in Gaza described by the EU’s High Representative Kaja Kallas as “catastrophic.”
“We don’t have a ceasefire, and that’s why it is so much harder to provide that aid,” Kallas said after the July 15 Foreign Affairs Council. “But we really need to work for that to help the people because we don’t know how far the ceasefire really is [from being agreed].”
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