UK halts Israel trade talks, summons ambassador over Gaza

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has rejected a statement from the EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas earlier on Tuesday.

In the EU statement, Kallas said the bloc was considering reviewing its cooperation agreement with Israel in light of the renewed operations in Gaza following an 11-week-long Israeli blockade of the enclave.

"We completely reject the direction taken in the statement, which reflects a total misunderstanding of the complex reality Israel is facing," the Israeli ministry said on X.

"Ignoring these realities and criticising Israel only hardens Hamas's position and encourages Hamas to stick to its guns. Hamas's recent praise for such criticism is a clear indication of this and results in prolonging the war," the ministry added.

Amid growing pressure over Gaza, EU foreign ministers say they want to review their trade relations with Israel, but they have stopped short of announcing firm action. 

Here, DW takes a deeper look at how Europe is now ramping up pressure on Israel over its actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

Despite an announcement from Israel that it would allow a small number of aid trucks to enter Gaza after an 11-week blockade, the UN said on Tuesday that none of that aid has yet reached the Palestinians.

A UN spokesperson said that "around 100" trucks had been given permission to cross into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Tuesday, following nine on Monday.

COGAT, the Israeli Defense Ministry body that oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said on Tuesday "93 UN trucks carrying humanitarian aid, including flour for bakeries, food for babies, medical equipment and pharmaceutical drugs were transferred today via the Kerem Shalom Crossing into the Gaza Strip."

But even that amount — less than the UN says is necessary — had not reached those in need, aid officials said.

"Today, one of our teams waited several hours for the Israeli green light to ... collect the nutrition supplies. Unfortunately, they were not able to bring those supplies into our warehouse," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

"So just to make it clear, while more supplies have come into the Gaza Strip, we have not been able to secure the arrival of those supplies into our warehouses and delivery points." 

The UN says that Gaza needs at least 500 trucks of aid every day. UN workers in Gaza have said warehouses and distribution centers have been empty for weeks.

Israel has been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war by groups such as Human Rights Watch. Starvation is a war crime according to international humanitarian law.

Twelve German citizens and their immediate relatives will be permitted to leave the war-torn Gaza Strip, Germany's Foreign Office said Tuesday.

A foreign office spokeswoman said their return was secured after close coordination between German and Israeli authorities.

"They had to hold out for months in catastrophic conditions, in some cases without sufficient food and drinking water and without functioning medical care," the spokeswoman continued.

Six children are part of the group, she added.

Once the group arrives in Germany, they will receive support from state counsellors and an airport chaplain, the Foreign Office said.

The spokeswoman highlighted that Germany was not evacuating Gazans. 

"The departure of the Germans and their family members from Gaza is in no way connected to the Israeli policy of so-called 'voluntary departure' of Palestinians from Gaza, but solely serves the duty of care for our nationals," she explained. 

"The German government and its European and international partners emphatically reject resettlement from the Gaza Strip," she added.

Since March, when a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas collapsed and Israel resumed its military campaign in the Palestinian enclave, a total of 86 German nationals, including their closest family members, have been able to leave the Strip, the spokeswoman said.

The European Commission has agreed to launch a review of whether Israel is meeting its human rights commitments under the EU-Israel association agreement, following a request from a majority of EU member states.

"It is clear from today's debate that there is a strong majority in favor of reviewing Article 2 of our association agreement with Israel," said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas at a press conference after a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

"We will therefore launch this exercise, and in the meantime, it is up to Israel to unblock humanitarian aid to Gaza." 

The UN says it now has permission to send about 100 aid trucks into Gaza as Israel loosens its blockade amid growing international pressure.

"It is not enough trucks entering to eleviate the suffering of people in Gaza right now," Sarah Davies from the Red Cross told DW.

Following warnings of "concrete actions" in response to Israel's escalation of its operations in Gaza on Monday, the UK has cut off talks on a free trade agreement with Israel, summoned the Israeli ambassador to the UK and introduced new sanctions against West Bank settlers.

"We cannot stand by in the face of this new deterioration. It is incompatible with the principles that underpin our bilateral relationship," British Foreign Minister David Lammy told lawmakers.

"Frankly, it's an affront to the values of the British people. Therefore, today, I'm announcing that we have suspended negotiations with this Israeli government on a new free trade agreement."

Lammy said that the new offensive was not the correct way to ensure the release of Israeli hostages being held in Gaza. He also condemned "extremist" elements in Israel's government and called for the ending of Israel's blockade on the war-torn enclave.

The UK was joined by France and Canada in a joint statement condemning Israel's actions on Monday.

A spokesperson for Israel's Foreign Minister, Oren Marmostein, played down what he called "anti-Israel obsession and domestic political considerations," in a post on social media.

At least 50 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday, local medics in the enclave said.

The reported deaths, which add to the toll of 53,486 given by the Hamas-run Health Ministry on Monday — a figure deemed largely accurate by the UN, among others — come as Israel pushes on with a new offensive amid its ongoing operation to root out the militant group Hamas.

The medics said the sites hit include two homes where women and children were among the dead, and a school housing displaced families.

The information cannot be independently verified.

The escalation in Gaza has provoked criticism from Israel's allies, with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday saying that he, along with the leaders of France and Canada, was horrified by the violence.

He repeated calls for a ceasefire.

Criticism has also come from within Israel itself, with a center-left lawmaker telling Reshet Bet radio on Tuesday that Israel was becoming an "outcast among nations."  

"A sane country doesn't engage in fighting against civilians, doesn't kill babies as a hobby and doesn't set for itself the goals of expelling a population," Yair Golan, a retired general and leader of the opposition Democrats party, said.

Israel began its current offensive in the Gaza Strip after Hamas and allied militants carried out raids in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which almost 1,200 people were killed, mostly Israeli civilians.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday described US demands at nuclear talks that Iran refrain from enriching uranium as "excessive and outrageous," state media reported.

"I don't think nuclear talks with the US will bring results. I don't know what will happen," Khamenei said. 

He said the United States should cease making demands of that nature.

Deputy Iran Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi already said on Monday that talks would fail if US negotiators continued to insist that Tehran desist from enriching uranium.

The US says enrichment is a step toward building nuclear weapons, while Iran insists that its nuclear program has only peaceful purposes.

Iran and the US have held four rounds of Omani-mediated nuclear talks since April 12, the highest-level contact between the two sides since Washington abandoned a landmark 2015 nuclear accord during US President Donald Trump's first term in office from 2017 to 2021.

The US withdrawal was accompanied by a reimposition of sanctions, to which Tehran responded by stepping up enrichment that was banned under the 2015 agreement.

 In recent days, Trump warned that "something bad is going to happen"  unless the Iranians "move quickly" toward a deal.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Tuesday that an agreement on lifting economic sanctions on Syria could be reached by ministers meeting in Brussels.

"On Syria, I hope that we will agree on the lifting of economic sanctions today," Kallas told reporters ahead of the meeting.

She said a failure to do so could mean Syria ending up with a situation like in Afghanistan, where the Islamist Taliban retook control of the country after the withdrawal of international peacekeepers.

Diplomats said ambassadors from the bloc's 27 member states had struck a preliminary agreement for the move after US President Donald Trump announced last week that Washington was lifting its sanctions against Syria. 

However, the diplomats said the bloc wanted to impose new sanctions on individuals and groups who continue to provoke ethnic tensions in the country, such as those behind recent deadly attacks targeting the Alawite minority, to which ousted President Bashar Assad belonged.

The EU already suspended some sanctions on key economic sectors in February, but officials have said they could be reimposed if Syria's new leaders go back on promises they have made to respect minority rights and transition to democracy.

The United Nations says Israel is allowing more aid trucks into the Gaza Strip as the country comes under increasing pressure from the world body and allies to prevent famine amid a new Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave.

Gaza has recently been subjected to a 2 1/2 month blockade by Israel, preventing food, medicine and fuel from entering, leading experts to warn that many residents are at risk of starvation.

Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, said on Tuesday that the world body had now received approvals for about 100 trucks to enter Gaza since Israel partially lifted the blockade.

But he said only five trucks had crossed into the Palestinian enclave since Monday, and that they did not appear to have been taken yet by aid groups for distribution. 

The UN has said the number of trucks is anyway just "drop in the ocean" of what is needed, with some 600 trucks entering Gaza per day during a ceasefire earlier this year.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he had made a decision to allow minimal aid into the enclave amid criticism from allies who he said couldn't support his country while "images of hunger" were emerging from Gaza.

Netanyahu has, however, rejected threats of "concrete actions" against Israel, including sanctions, from Canada, France and the UK, saying such penalties would be "a huge prize" for the deadly raids by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

 

There is hope the 27 EU member states will approve the lifting of all economic sanctions imposed on Syria under the now ousted regime of dictatar Bashar Assad. 

This as Iran's supreme leader voices doubts about the success of talks on Tehran's nuclear program with the US.

Israel is coming under growing criticism from several of its allies over its management of aid to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip amid a threatened famine there.

You can read more here as developments unfold across the Middle East region at a time of massive political turbulence.