FAC: Discussions without action are meaningless, Oxfam reaction

Today, European Foreign Affairs Ministers discussed the situation in the Middle East, including Lebanon and Palestine. In response, Agnes Bertrand Sanz, Oxfam Humanitarian Expert, said: 

"Discussions without action are meaningless. We have seen this pattern before - talk, delay, repeat. And in the meantime, Israel continues to kill, wound and displace people. What is needed now - and has been for a long time - is the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

"What more evidence does the EU need? The reality is on the news and on our social media every day. If this is not enough to act, then this clause is decoration, nothing more.

"We have seen Israel's blatant disregard for the rules of war, its killings of civilians and the bombings of hospitals and schools, its ongoing genocide in Gaza, the accelerating ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and the discriminatory Israeli death penalty law. The ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza exist in name only. In Lebanon, Israel has killed thousands, while forcibly displacing more than a million people. A ten-day ceasefire, during which Israeli attacks have not stopped, will not allow people to rebuild their homes and lives.

"The evidence is hardly scarce. It is political will and pressure needed to break the current EU deadlock driven by some EU countries. If the EU cannot get there as a bloc, capitals should explore all options to suspend their engagement with Israel. Failing to do so is complicity."