Israel: 'Insinuations of forced displacement are unacceptable,' says EU foreign policy chief

The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said today that statements by Israeli government representatives about making life impossible for civilians in Gaza, ultimately forcing them to leave, are “disturbing, counterproductive and dangerous,” Anadolu has reported.

“Civilians in Gaza must be protected,” said Borrell on X. “Insinuations of forced displacement are completely unacceptable.”

Israel has mounted a relentless military offensive against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, on 7 October. The apartheid state has killed at least 23,469 Palestinian civilians and wounded 59,167 others, according to the local health authorities. Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack, many of them by tanks and helicopter gunships of the Israel Defence Forces.

According to the UN, around 85 per cent of Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced, many of them on multiple occasions. The whole population of 2.3 million people is food insecure. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have no shelter and ⁠fewer than half the number of aid trucks are entering the territory than before the start of the offensive. The situation has been described by human rights and aid organisations as a humanitarian catastrophe.

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