On Gaza ceasefire Borrell stands with UN secretary general. Silence from EU leaders

Brussels – Two months after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack and the beginning of the furious Israeli response, the UN secretary-general plays another card from his deck and releases the call for a humanitarian ceasefire. An appeal immediately shared by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell.

António Guterres clung to the UN Charter and Article 99, which provides that the secretary-general may call the attention of the Security Council to any matter that in his view constitutes a threat to the maintenance of international peace and security. In a letter to the UN governing body’s rotating president, Ecuadorean José Javier de la Gasca Lopez Dominguez, Guterres again condemned Hamas’s “repugnant act of terror,” before listing the numbers that describe the drama in the Gaza Strip. More than 15,000 dead, 40 percent of them minors. More than half the homes destroyed. 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinians displaced. And only 14 out of 36 hospitals still partially functioning. “There is no safe in Gaza,” Guterres commented.

A situation that “is rapidly deteriorating into a catastrophe” and which according to the Portuguese diplomat is now on the verge of “humanitarian collapse.” Just enough to invoke—for the first time since he has been at the helm of the United Nations—Article 99. “I expect that soon public order will definitely collapse because of the desperate conditions. An even worse situation could arise, with epidemic diseases and increased pressure in neighboring countries for mass displacement,” Guterres explained, launching the desperate appeal to Security Council members to ask the warring parties for a humanitarian ceasefire.

Because Guterres’ request will be the subject of a resolution and a vote of the 15 members— permanent and non-permanent—of the Security Council. “I call on EU member countries and like-minded partners to support the call,” the EU High Representative immediately relaunched. In addition to the permanent members—United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom—Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, Gabon, Ghana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates currently sit on the UN Security Council. It is their responsibility to modify the call for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses” contained in the November 15 resolution into a stronger formula. That of “ceasefire.”

Foreign ministers of the 27 “concerned” about settler violence in the West Bank

More or less the same debate will be had by the EU foreign ministers and Josep Borrell on December 11, when they meet in Brussels for the Foreign Affairs Council. As reiterated by European External Action Service spokesman Peter Stano, it will be there that the 27 will decide whether the time has come to call for an end to hostilities from the EU as well, given the immense number of civilian casualties in the conflict. Also on the agenda will be another important item: the possibility of introducing a sanctions regime for Israeli settlers involved in acts of violence in the West Bank, as already announced by the United States and the Prime Minister of Belgium, Alexander De Croo.

The rope may have snapped with the demolition by settler groups of the school in the village of Zamuta, which had been built with EU funds. An “intolerable” destruction, commented EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic. “Settler violence against Palestinian communities must stop,” is Borrell’s comment. After hundreds of demolitions of EU-funded structures in the West Bank, Zamuta’s is perhaps the point of no return.