Top EU diplomat: Israel has right to self-defense but current actions disproportionate

Author: Published: April 15, 2025

European Union announces $1.8 billion to ‘help stabilize the West Bank and Gaza’; Macron calls Abbas, urges ‘reform’ of Palestinian Authority as part of path to two-state solution

By Agencies and ToI Staff14 April 2025, 9:54 pm
PA Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa (L) shakes hands with EU High Representative and Vice-President for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas (R) ahead of a European Union Foreign Affairs Council meeting at the European Convention Center Luxembourg (ECCL) in Luxembourg City, on April 14, 2025. (JOHN THYS / AFP)

PA Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa (L) shakes hands with EU High Representative and Vice-President for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas (R) ahead of a European Union Foreign Affairs Council meeting at the European Convention Center Luxembourg (ECCL) in Luxembourg City, on April 14, 2025. (JOHN THYS / AFP)

Israel has the right to defend itself, but its current actions go beyond proportionate self-defense, Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, told reporters Monday.

Earlier, Kallas said Europe was stepping up its support for the Palestinians, with a plan to provide €1.6 billion ($1.8 billion) until 2027 to “help stabilize the West Bank and Gaza.”

The fresh aid pledge came just ahead of a meeting between Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa and EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.

“The EU will invest in essential infrastructure while delivering humanitarian aid and support for refugees,” she said on X.

The EU is looking to boost the PA, as Israel has resumed its war against Hamas in Gaza after a ceasefire-hostage release deal largely put a halt to the fighting for two months.

A handout picture provided by the Palestinian Authority’s press office (PPO) shows PA President Mahmoud Abbas chairing a meeting of the Fatah Central Committee, in Ramallah, on February 19, 2025. (Thaer GHANEM / PPO / AFP)

Brussels — the biggest international donor to the Palestinians — said the package would include 620 million euros in grants for the PA.

The funds will be linked to reforms on “fiscal sustainability, democratic governance, private sector development, and public infrastructure and services,” the EU said.

A further 400 million euros in loans would come from the bloc’s lending arm, the European Investment Bank.

The EU’s new package follows on from the previous three-year support plan worth 1.36 billion euros from 2021 to 2024.

Macron urges PA reform

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron urged “reform” of the PA as part of a plan for the West Bank-based body to govern a postwar Gaza without the Hamas terror group, which Israel has sworn to eliminate after its October 7, 2023, onslaught.

France is among European nations to have backed a plan for Gaza to return to the control of the Ramallah-based authority after nearly two decades of Hamas rule if a ceasefire deal is reached to end the war with Israel.

Palestinian Authority’s Heritage and Tourism Minister Hani al-Hayek (L), French President Emmanuel Macron (C) and IMA President Jack Lang visit the exhibition Treasures rescued from Gaza at the Arab World Institute (IMA) in Paris, France on April 14, 2025. (Michel Euler / POOL / AFP)

Macron called his PA counterpart Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, after last week announcing France could take the unprecedented step of recognizing a Palestinian state in the coming months, sparking ire from Israel.

“It is essential to set a framework for the day after: disarm and sideline Hamas, define credible governance and reform the Palestinian Authority,” he said.

“This should allow progress towards a two-state political solution, with a view to the peace conference in June, in the service of peace and security for all.”

Macron said France could recognize a Palestinian state during a United Nations conference in New York in June.

The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that Abbas and Macron had “emphasized the urgent need for a ceasefire, the acceleration of humanitarian aid delivery, the rejection of the displacement of the Palestinian people from their land.”

France has thrown its support behind a plan put forward by Arab nations, including Jordan, to rebuild Gaza without evicting its 2.4 million Palestinian residents.

The Arab League-endorsed plan was put forward to counter a US proposal to send the war-ravaged territory’s inhabitants elsewhere.

Hamas has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007 when it violently seized control from the PA.

Palestinians gather around a large crater following an Israeli strike in the Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City on April 13, 2025. (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have ruled out the PA’s return to Gaza, accusing it of supporting terrorism.

Paris has long championed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which would see both a Palestinian and Israeli state live peacefully side by side.

But the formal recognition of a Palestinian state would mark a major policy switch and risk antagonizing Israel, which insists such moves by foreign states are premature.

Macron’s remarks last week sparked a wave of criticism from right-wing groups in France and from Netanyahu and his son Yair Netanyahu.

“Screw you!” Yair Netanyahu wrote in English on X late on Saturday, while the premier himself dismissed Macron’s remarks.

War was sparked on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 50,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

No Breakthrough in Gaza Talks, Egyptian and Palestinian Sources Say

Author: Published: April 15, 2025

No Breakthrough in Gaza Talks, Egyptian and Palestinian Sources Say

by Reuters and Algemeiner Staff

Families and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas gather to demand a deal that will bring back all the hostages held in Gaza, outside a meeting between hostage representatives and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem, Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad

The latest round of talks in Cairo to restore the defunct Gaza ceasefire and free Israeli hostages ended with no apparent breakthrough, Palestinian and Egyptian sources said on Monday.

The sources said Hamas had stuck to its position that any agreement must lead to an end to the war in Gaza.

Israel, which restarted its military campaign in Gaza last month after a ceasefire agreed in January unraveled, has said it will not end the war until Hamas is stamped out. The terrorist group has ruled out any proposal that it lay down its arms.

But despite that fundamental disagreement, the sources said a Hamas delegation led by the group’s Gaza Chief Khalil Al-Hayya had shown some flexibility over how many hostages it could free in return for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel should a truce be extended.

An Egyptian source told Reuters the latest proposal to extend the truce would see Hamas free an increased number of hostages. Israeli minister Zeev Elkin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, told Army Radio on Monday that Israel was seeking the release of around 10 hostages, raised from previous Hamas consent to free five.

Hamas has asked for more time to respond to the latest proposal, the Egyptian source said.

“Hamas has no problem, but it wants guarantees Israel agrees to begin the talks on the second phase of the ceasefire agreement” leading to an end to the war, the Egyptian source said.

AIRSTRIKES

Hamas terrorists freed 33 Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinian detainees during the six-week first phase of the ceasefire which began in January. But the second phase, which was meant to begin at the start of March and lead to the end of the war, was never launched.

Meanwhile, 59 Israeli hostages remain in the hands of the terrorists. Israel believes up to 24 of them are alive.

Palestinians say the wave of Israeli attacks since the collapse of the ceasefire has been among the deadliest and most intense of the war, hitting an exhausted population surviving in the enclave’s ruins.

In Jabalia, a community on Gaza’s northern edge, rescue workers in orange vests were trying to smash through concrete with a sledgehammer to recover bodies buried underneath a building that collapsed in an Israeli strike.

Feet and a hand of one person could be seen under a concrete slab. Men carried a body wrapped in a blanket. Workers at the scene said as many as 25 people had been killed.

The Israeli military said it had struck there against terrorists planning an ambush.

In Khan Younis in the south, a camp of makeshift tents had been shredded into piles of debris by an airstrike. Families had returned to poke through the rubbish in search of belongings.

“We used to live in houses. They were destroyed. Now, our tents have been destroyed too. We don’t know where to stay,” said Ismail al-Raqab, who returned to the area after his family fled the raid before dawn.

EGYPT’S SISI MEETS QATARI EMIR

The leaders of the two Arab countries that have led the ceasefire mediation efforts, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, met in Doha on Sunday. The Egyptian source said Sisi had called for additional international guarantees for a truce agreement, beyond those provided by Egypt and Qatar themselves.

US President Donald Trump, who has backed Israel’s decision to resume its campaign and called for the Palestinian population of Gaza to leave the territory, said last week that progress was being made in returning the hostages.

Hamas unwilling to lay down arms in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports

Author: Published: April 15, 2025

The terror group also said that it would consider releasing up to 10 hostages in the iteration of the Egyptian ceasefire deal.

By LIRAN HARONI
Updated: APRIL 14, 2025 21:42
Hamas terrorists in Rafah, in Gaza, February 22, 2025. (photo credit: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled)
Hamas terrorists in Rafah, in Gaza, February 22, 2025.
(photo credit: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled)
Hamas told Al Jazeera that it was unwilling and it would be “completely unacceptable” to lay down arms, Al Jazeera reported on Monday.

“Hamas informed Egypt that the gateway to any agreement is a cessation of hostilities and withdrawal, not disarmament of the resistance,” Al Jazeera reported.

The Hamas representative also told the Qatari outlet that the latest proposal involves the handover of living and dead hostages over the course of 45 days to extend the ceasefire and allow more aid into the Gaza Strip.

Egypt has reportedly submitted a hostage ceasefire proposal to Hamas, which includes the release of approximately eight hostages in exchange for a ceasefire lasting “between 40 to 70 days,” Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Monday, citing an Egyptian source familiar with the details.

Israel is now pushing for the release of 10 hostages, The Jerusalem Post previously reported.

IDF soldiers seen operating in the southern Gaza Strip, April 13, 2025 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)Enlrage image
IDF soldiers seen operating in the southern Gaza Strip, April 13, 2025 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)

What is the Egyptian proposal?

A senior Hamas member recently told Al Jazeera that Egypt’s ceasefire proposal suggests releasing half of the hostages during the first week of the agreement. This would be in exchange for a temporary 45-day ceasefire and the entry of humanitarian aid, including food and shelter, into the Gaza Strip.

Under the proposal, the remaining living hostages and casualties would be released throughout the 45-day period.  The senior Hamas official also expressed surprise at the inclusion of the clause about the “dismantling of resistance weapons.”

Egypt reportedly told the Hamas delegation that there would be no deal unless negotiations were held to disarm the Gaza-based terror groups.

The official stressed that Hamas informed Egypt that any agreement must begin with a cessation of hostilities and withdrawal from Gaza. Hamas vehemently opposes any discussion on the weapons of terror organizations, asserting that the right to maintain “resistance weapons” is non-negotiable and forms an integral part of Palestinian rights.

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