Calls for suspension of EU-Israel Association Agreement
The head of a leading Palestinian human rights organisation has urged the European Union to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement in light of Israel's deepening military campaign in Gaza and the planned expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Issam Younis, managing director of the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, was addressing a meeting in Brussels on the situation in Gaza and the West Bank hosted by the European Endowment for Democracy (EED), an EU-funded organisation supporting democracy in the Middle East.
"If not now, when? Shall they wait until how many Palestinians are killed - more than 54,000," asked Mr Younis.
"We have no need to prove that Israel is violating the basic principles of international law and international humanitarian law.
"It's well documented."
Last month a majority of EU member states, including Ireland, signed up to a Dutch proposal for a review of the Association Agreement, on the basis that Israel may be in breach of its binding human rights and international humanitarian law clauses.
On foot of that shift in member state opinion, the EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has begun the review process, with the possibility that it may be completed in time for a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on 23 June.
Mr Younis said the advisory opinion last July of the International Court of Justice was clear and the EU had a moral, legal and political obligation to abide by the court's finding.
"First, the occupation is illegal. It should be ended," he said.
"Palestinians have full rights for self-determination.
"What is really important [regarding] the advisory opinion is that it has obligations on third party states, and here we're talking about Europe...to act not to prolong the occupation and to cease any cooperation with the state of Israel that would prolong the occupation.
Mr Younis said the statements by religious right ministers in the Israeli coalition amounted to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and that the time was ripe for the EU to apply concrete measures which would help bring about a two-state solution.
"If Europe is still advocating the two-state solution, then they should say clearly that settlements are illegal and genocide [has] be stopped, and that Gaza is for Gazans," he said.
Mr Younis accused Israel of deliberately frustrating the two-state solution by expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank and by creating irreversible facts on the ground.
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights is an independent, non-partisan, organisation based in Gaza.
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