June 26, 2025, 20:31:13 (IST) Whatsapp Facebook Twitter

EU struggles for unified stance on Gaza amid internal divisions over foreign policy

The European Union’s 27 member states are struggling to establish a common position on the ongoing conflict in Gaza, a situation that highlights the bloc’s internal divisions on key foreign policy issues, according to a report in BBC. The primary obstacle is the EU’s requirement for unanimity in its Common Foreign and Security Policy, meaning a single country’s objection can prevent collective action. This has exposed deep-seated differences in national stances regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with countries like Germany and Austria often holding positions that differ from those of member states such as Ireland, Spain, and Belgium. The resulting inability to speak with one voice diminishes the EU’s diplomatic influence on the crisis in West Asia and complicates coordinated humanitarian responses.

6 May 2025 17.39 BST Closing summary Iran has urged the US to end its support for Israel’s continuing strikes on Yemen, claiming Israel is trying to use its conflict with the Houthi-led government to drive a wedge between Iran and the US in the negotiations over the future of Tehran’s civil nuclear programme. The strikes have been criticised by the UN-recognised Yemen government based in Aden, which said it had not been consulted and airstrikes alone were not an integrated plan to remove the Houthis from power. Yemen has been divided between the Houthis and the official government since the Houthis captured the capital, Sana’a, in 2015.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she told Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar in a telephone conversation that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is untenable. “Humanitarian aid must resume immediately and should never be politicised. The new aid delivery mechanism should run through humanitarian actors,” she added in a statement on X.

Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the Gaza Strip should be “entirely destroyed” and its inhabitants “leave in great numbers to third countries” after the war , in what would effectively amount to ethnic cleansing.

Smotrich’s comments came after Israel’s security cabinet approved plans for an expanded offensive which could see the forced displacement of most Palestinian people in Gaza and occupation of the territory on an indefinite basis.

In response, Hamas said there was no sense in truce talks (for a temporary ceasefire agreement) with Israel and urged the international community to halt Israel’s “hunger war” against Gaza, a reference to the total blockade on aid deliveries to Gaza.

However, a senior Hamas official said the Palestinian militant group would be open to a five to seven year truce with Israel if certain strict conditions were met.

Israel is reportedly planning to take control of the distribution of humanitarian aid inside Gaza , using private American security contractors, as a condition for lifting its two-month aid blockade into the territory.

The UN has condemned the Israeli proposal to fundamentally alter the aid system in Gaza , which the UN’s humanitarian office said is “designed to further control and restrict supplies” flowing into the Strip.

The Israeli military said it fired on Yemen’s main airport on Tuesday, a day after Israeli forces carried out airstrikes on Hodeidah port in Yemen in response to a Houthi missile landing near Israel’s main air hub on Sunday. Share

6 May 2025 17.18 BST View image in fullscreen This picture taken from a position in southern Israel along the border with the Gaza Strip on 6 May 2025, shows buildings in Gaza destroyed during the war between Israel and the militant group Hamas. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images Share

6 May 2025 16.49 BST European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she told Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar in a telephone conversation that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is untenable. “Humanitarian aid must resume immediately and should never be politicised. The new aid delivery mechanism should run through humanitarian actors,” she added in a statement on X. Share

6 May 2025 16.25 BST Patrick Wintour Iran has urged the US to end its support for Israel’s continuing strikes on Yemen, claiming Israel is trying to use its conflict with the Houthi-led government to drive a wedge between Iran and the US in the negotiations over the future of Tehran’s civil nuclear programme. The strikes have been criticised by the UN-recognised Yemen government based in Aden , which said it had not been consulted and airstrikes alone were not an integrated plan to remove the Houthis from power. Yemen has been divided between the Houthis and the official government since the Houthis captured the capital, Sana’a, in 2015. Israel claimed 20 of its warplanes on Monday had completely destroyed the Houthi-held port of Hodeidah, as well as a nearby cement factory. The Houthis said four people had been killed. On Tuesday, Israel struck Sana’a international airport, warning civilians to leave the area. In launching the attacks, probably more extensive than those mounted by the US, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been highlighting Iran’s role in arming the Houthis. The Shia group mounted an attack on Ben Gurion airport on Saturday that the Houthis said was an act of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Israel was shocked that its air defences were penetrated by a single Houthi missile, but Iran believes Israel is escalating the crisis in an attempt to disrupt the negotiations between the US and Iran over its nuclear programme. The talks are due to resume on Sunday. Iran calls for US to withdraw support for Israeli strikes on Yemen Read more Share

6 May 2025 16.00 BST The Houthis have responded to the Israeli military attacking Yemen’s main airport in the capital Sana’a. Israel’s military said earlier that its warplanes struck the capital, “fully disabling the airport”, after three civilian planes, the departures hall, the runway and a military air base were reportedly targeted in the strikes (see post at 15.04 for more details). There were no immediate reports of casualties. The Israeli “aggression will not pass without a response, and Yemen will not be discouraged from its stance in support of Gaza”, the Houthi political bureau said in a statement. Share

6 May 2025 15.45 BST Summary of the day so far… Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the Gaza Strip should be “entirely destroyed” and its inhabitants “leave in great numbers to third countries” after the war, in what would effectively amount to ethnic cleansing.

Smotrich’s comments came after Israel’s security cabinet approved plans for an expanded offensive which could see the forced displacement of most Palestinian people in Gaza and occupation of the territory on an indefinite basis.

In response, Hamas said there was no sense in truce talks (for a temporary ceasefire agreement) with Israel and urged the international community to halt Israel’s “hunger war” against Gaza, a reference to the total blockade on aid deliveries to Gaza.

However, a senior Hamas official said the Palestinian militant group would be open to a five to seven year truce with Israel if certain strict conditions were met.

Israel is reportedly planning to take control of the distribution of humanitarian aid inside Gaza, using private American security contractors, as a condition for lifting its two-month aid blockade into the territory.

The UN has condemned the Israeli proposal to fundamentally alter the aid system in Gaza, which the UN’s humanitarian office said is “designed to further control and restrict supplies” flowing into the Strip.

The Israeli military said it fired on Yemen’s main airport on Tuesday, a day after Israeli forces carried out airstrikes on Hodeidah port in Yemen in response to a Houthi missile landing near Israel’s main air hub on Sunday. Share

6 May 2025 15.04 BST Israeli military says it struck Yemen’s main airport in Sana’a The Israeli military has said it has struck Houthi targets in Yemen, including the airport in the capital Sana’a, along with several major power stations. Israel had earlier warned people to leave the area around Sana’a international airport, one day after Israeli forces carried out airstrikes on Hodeidah port in Yemen in response to a Houthi missile landing near Israel’s main air hub on Sunday. Sources told Reuters that Tuesday’s airstrikes targeted three civilian airplanes, the departures hall, the airport runway and a military air base under Houthi control. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The IDF wrote in a post on X: The airport served as a central hub for the Houthi terrorist regime to transfer weapons and operatives, clearly underscoring the Houthi terrorist regime’s brutal exploitation of civilian infrastructure. Furthermore, several central power plants were struck in, and surrounding, the Sana’a area. These plants were exploited by the Houthi regime for energy infrastructure and for the construction of underground tunnels. View image in fullscreen Smoke billows on the horizon following an Israeli airstrike on Sana’a on 6 May, 2025. Photograph: Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images Share Updated at 15.05 BST

6 May 2025 14.33 BST Bezalel Smotrich is one of the far-right leaders on whom Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile coalition depends. The finance minister is among those in Israel who considers the West Bank the biblical heartland of the Jewish people. He called the annexation of the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, “one of the most important challenges” for the Israeli leadership. Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the West Bank is home to three million Palestinian people, and around 490,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law. Smotrich told Channel 12 during a conference organised by the right-wing Besheva newspaper yesterday that Israelis should start to embrace the word “occupation”. It came after the Israeli security cabinet approved an expansion of its war on Gaza, which an Israeli official said would entail “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories” (see post at 08.50 for more details). Share

6 May 2025 14.08 BST Far right Israeli minister says ‘Gaza will be entirely destroyed’ The far-right Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has been speaking at a conference in the occupied West Bank settlement of Ofra. “Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to… the south to a humanitarian zone without Hamas or terrorism, and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries,” he said. Smotrich, who has recently said that Israel will not withdraw from Gaza even if there is another hostage deal, expressed his hope that the territory would be formally annexed during the current government’s term, which could last until late next year. Annexation and the acquisition of territory by military conquest is forbidden as one of the founding principles of international law including the UN charter. View image in fullscreen Bezalel Smotrich has described in explicit terms his active effort to annex the West Bank to Israel. Photograph: Amir Cohen/Reuters Share Updated at 14.20 BST

6 May 2025 13.44 BST Israel’s plan to expand its Gaza offensive, displace people within the territory and take control of aid distribution has horrified Palestinians in Gaza who have already suffered multiple displacements and food shortages during 19 months of conflict. Israel has been blocking all aid from entering Gaza since 2 March, when a two-month ceasefire with Hamas that had improved access to food and medicine in Gaza and allowed many Palestinians to go home, fell apart. Reuters reported: For Aya, a 30-year-old Gaza City resident who returned home with her family during the ceasefire after months in the southern part of the strip, Israel’s announcement on Monday raised fears of being killed or indefinitely displaced. “Are we going to die this time?” she said in a message on a chat app. “Are they going to displace us again? Are we going to end up in Rafah, and will this be the last time, or are they going to force us out of Gaza after Rafah?” she said, referring to the Rafah area in southern Gaza, next to Egypt’s border. Attending a funeral on Monday for several people killed in an Israeli air strike on a building in Gaza City, Mohammed al-Seikaly said things were so dire it was hard to comprehend Israel’s plans to intensify its assault. “There is nothing left in the Gaza Strip that has not been struck by missiles and explosive barrels, and there are still threats to expand the operation,” he said. “I’m asking in front of the whole world, what’s left to bomb?” Share Updated at 13.48 BST

6 May 2025 13.27 BST Israel’s military on Tuesday warned people to leave the area around the main airport in Yemen’s capital Sana’a, a day after it struck the port of Hodeidah in response to a Houthi missile that landed near Israel’s main air hub. Tensions have escalated between Israel and Yemen’s Houthis as the Iran-aligned group continues to launch attacks in response to Israel expanding operations in Gaza. “Not evacuating puts you in danger,” the military said. It published a map of the area surrounding Sana’a International Airport. Israel carried out strikes in the vicinity of Yemen’s port of Hodeidah on Monday which killed four people and injured 39, according to the South-run health ministry. Share

6 May 2025 13.09 BST View image in fullscreen People walk past a wall a mural depicting destruction in the Gaza Strip in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on 6 May 2025. Photograph: Zain Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images Share

6 May 2025 12.39 BST ‘Palestinians in Gaza are desperate for food and water but are getting bombs instead’ – UN We have some more quotes from Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA), who has been speaking to reporters in Geneva. “The bottom line is that there’s no aid to distribute anymore because the aid operation has been strangled… There’s no more to give,” he said after news broke that the Israeli cabinet had approved a plan to deliver aid through private companies. In Gaza “there’s a desperate need for food getting in; they’re getting bombs”, he said. “They need water, they’re getting bombs. They need health care, they’re getting bombs.” Israel needs to allow border crossings to reopen and for life-saving aid to go through to alleviate the suffering, Laerke said. “We have aid pre-positioned outside of Gaza, ready to go in,” he added. Share

6 May 2025 12.21 BST UN condemns Israeli plan to shut down current aid system in Gaza Israel is planning to take control of the distribution of humanitarian aid inside Gaza, using private American security contractors, as a condition for lifting its two-month aid blockade into the territory, according to reports and officials. The UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) has responded to the plans, condemning the Israeli proposal to fundamentally alter the current aid system in Gaza. “We do not accept a proposal and a plan that does not live up to the core fundamental humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality, and independent delivery of aid,” OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke said in Geneva. Israel’s plan is “designed to further control and restrict supplies, which is the opposite of what is needed,” Laerke said. Humanitarian officials say the territory is on the brink of catastrophe as food and fuel runs out due to a total Israeli blockade imposed on 2 March, which has also cut off critical vaccines and medical supplies. View image in fullscreen Palestinians people wait for food to be distributed by charities in Khan Younis. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images Share Updated at 12.42 BST

6 May 2025 11.38 BST Humanitarian aid restrictions may violate American law, US Democrats say A group of mainly Democratic US senators wants Congress’ watchdog agency to investigate whether controls on humanitarian aid deliveries by Israel and other foreign governments violate American law, according to a letter seen by Reuters. Here is some of the Reuters report: The six senators – Chris Van Hollen, Dick Durbin, Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Peter Welch – wrote to comptroller general Gene Dodaro asking him to launch an investigation by the nonpartisan government accountability office of the US government’s implementation of laws regarding the delivery of humanitarian assistance… “In Ethiopia, Sudan, Ukraine, Burma, Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Gaza, vital humanitarian assistance such as food, medical equipment, water purification systems, and other lifesaving goods have been blocked or restricted, directly and indirectly, by state and non-state actors,” they said in a letter, dated Monday and seen by Reuters, referring to Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act and the Leahy Laws. The Leahy Laws prohibit the supply of US assistance to any foreign security force unit implicated in gross violations of human rights, including torture and extrajudicial killing. Section 620I bars assistance for countries that impede delivery of humanitarian aid. Much recent concern has focused on Gaza. The United Nations and Palestinian representatives at the international court of justice have accused Israel of breaking international law by refusing to let aid into Gaza, after Israel began on 2 March to cut off all supplies to the 2.3 million residents of the Palestinian territory. Israel has defended its blockade against aid entering Gaza, alleging that Hamas steals supplies intended for the civilian population and distributes them to its own forces, an allegation that Hamas denies. Share

6 May 2025 11.08 BST As my colleague Jason Burke notes in this story, France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot has called Israel’s plan for an expanded offensive in Gaza “unacceptable”, and said its government was “in violation of humanitarian law”. Barrot was also quoted in an interview with France’s RTL Radio as saying that Paris was “working towards the recognition of a Palestinian state” (for context: Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognised a Palestinian state last year, provoking outrage in the Israeli government). He said: France’s voice is heard when it speaks on these issues. We want other countries to act alongside France, for commitments to be made and for France to help create the conditions for the very existence of the Palestinian state – which is far from guaranteed… The urgent priority is a ceasefire and unimpeded access to humanitarian aid… The risk of famine is real. Humanitarian access must be opened immediately. Share Updated at 13.39 BST

6 May 2025 10.22 BST Houthi rebels say four people killed in latest Israeli airstrikes on Yemen Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have said four people were killed and 39 others injured in Israeli air raids that followed a missile strike by the group on Israel’s main airport. “Three citizens were killed and 35 others wounded” at a cement factory in Bajil, while one person died and four were injured at Hodeida port, the Houthis’ al-Masirah TV station said, quoting the health ministry. On Sunday, the Houthis launched a missile from Yemen that struck an access road near Israel’s main airport, briefly halting flights and commuter traffic. Four people were lightly injured. It was the first time a missile had struck the grounds of Israel’s airport since the start of the war. The Houthis have targeted Israel throughout Israel’s war on Gaza in solidarity with Palestinians. The Trump administration has launched an intensified campaign of daily airstrikes targeting the Houthis since 15 March 2025 but many civilians are reported to have been killed in the attacks. View image in fullscreen Firefighters work as huge fires erupted at a cement factory in Yemen after the Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes against Hodeida port. Photograph: Al-Masirah Tv/Reuters Share Updated at 10.24 BST