Borrell proposes an arms embargo on Israel due to the threat of an offensive in Rafah

International warnings about Israel's plans to attack Rafah, a town in the south of the Gaza Strip where 1.4 million people are crowded, continue to increase.

After the United States and the United Kingdom, the EU also expressed this Monday its “deep concern” about the plans of Benjamin Netanyahu's Government.

The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, has proposed taking a step further with an arms embargo on Israel.

At the same time, it highlights the decision of a court in the Netherlands, which has ordered the Government to stop sending parts of F-35 aircraft to the Jewish State given that it “does not sufficiently take into account the consequences of its attacks for the civil population".

“Let's be logical.

“How many times have we heard the most prominent leaders and foreign ministers of the world saying that too many people are being killed (in Gaza)?” Borrell said at a press conference after an informal council of development ministers in Brussels. .

Already upon arrival at the meeting, in which the commissioner general of UNRWA (UN agency for Palestinian refugees), Philippe Lazzarini, participated, the head of European diplomacy had said that it is necessary to “do something more than express concern ”.

And he pointed above all at Washington, the main supplier of weapons to Israel, but also at other countries that have not stopped their shipments of war material in the face of the military offensive launched after the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, which has already caused at least 28,300 dead, according to Gaza health authorities.

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“President [Joe] Biden has said it is not proportional.

Well, if you think too many people are being killed, maybe you have to provide fewer weapons to prevent so many people from dying.

"Isn't it logical?" Borrell added, who has also condemned Prime Minister Netanyahu's call to "evacuate" the more than one million Palestinians concentrated in Rafah.

“They are going to evacuate them… Where?

"To the Moon?" criticized the head of European diplomacy.

In addition, Borrell and Lazzarini have urged the Israeli government to hand over evidence of the alleged involvement of UNRWA workers in the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, an accusation that has led to the immediate dismissal of a dozen agency employees and the opening of an internal investigation.

The head of European diplomacy has highlighted the decision of the appeal judges in The Hague, who this Monday ordered the Government of the Netherlands to stop sending F-35 aircraft parts to Israel - manufactured by the United States, but distributed from the Dutch military base of Woensdrecht—and they have given him seven days to apply the ruling, which Mark Rutte's acting Executive has already announced that he will appeal.

Risk of “serious violations”

The judges' order does not imply a definitive legal decision on whether Israel is violating humanitarian law;

It limits itself to pointing out “an unequivocal risk that F-35 components exported to Israel will be used to commit serious violations” of the same.

The Dutch branch of the humanitarian organization Oxfam Novib had gone to court, along with Pax Nederland and The Rights Forum, considering that this type of shipment violates the law of war.

They alleged that the Netherlands “knows that fighter jets are being used to attack Gaza.”

This Monday, Michiel Servaes, director of Oxfam Novib, advocated that the ruling represents "a turning point, at least in the way the Netherlands acts in this terrible war."

In January, the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ), also based in The Hague, called on Israel to take measures to prevent a possible genocide against the Gazans.

The UN judges did not demand a ceasefire, but they made the most of the humanitarian demands contemplated by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (1948).

Indirect pressure on Israeli allies to provide certain types of aid that may violate international laws.

Concern about the terrible consequences of an attack in an area with such a density of refugees – who have nowhere to flee, as Borrell recalled – has led even the countries most sympathetic to Israel to raise their tone in recent hours.

US President Joe Biden warned Netanyahu on Sunday that the imminent military operation in Rafah should not be carried out “without a credible and executable plan that guarantees security and support” for the 1.4 million people sheltered in this town in the border with Egypt.

Also over the weekend, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said he was “deeply concerned” about the possibility of Israel bombing an area “where half the population of Gaza takes refuge.”

As he wrote in

Concern is also increasing among the Twenty-Seven and not only among the countries that, such as Spain or Belgium, have more firmly demanded a ceasefire since almost the beginning of the conflict.

The countries most aligned with Israel also express concern about a potential new humanitarian catastrophe: the head of German diplomacy, Annalena Baerbock, has warned that an Israeli offensive in Rafah would be a "humanitarian catastrophe foretold."

Gazans “cannot be diluted in the air,” she said in

This is an analysis shared by the Netherlands, despite the fact that its Government does not agree with the ruling on the fighter jets.

“It is difficult to see how a large-scale military operation in such a densely populated area will not lead to many civilian deaths and an even greater humanitarian catastrophe,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot.

“This is unjustifiable,” she stressed on social media, where she also called for the immediate resumption of talks to negotiate a new humanitarian ceasefire “and, eventually, a prolonged cessation of hostilities.”

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