Borrell asks Israel to apply ceasefire established by the UN

The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, stressed to the BBC this Monday that the recent UN Security Council resolution on a ceasefire in Gaza, in which the United States did not exercise its right to veto, “must be applied by Israel.”

In an interview with the British television network, Borrell gave his opinion on the current situation in the conflict and whether it would be changing course after the warning issued to Israel by the president of the United States, Joe Biden.

“There is a UN resolution that has been voted and approved and must be implemented; we support it and ask Israel to implement it,” he said.

Borrell, one of the most critical voices on how the war is being fought in Gaza, noted that the US “has always had enormous influence over Israel” while observing that “the issue here is whether they want to use it.”

“Now the support of the United States cannot be considered unconditional because they have global interests and cannot ignore the humanitarian catastrophe that is happening in Gaza. And now what is happening in Gaza is part of the internal conversation six months before the elections (in USA.)”.

Regarding the suspension of the sale of weapons to Israel agreed to by several countries, including Spain, and questioned whether this would mark a turning point in the conflict, observed that “the export of arms in Europe is a national competition”so each Member State adopts the decision it considers most appropriate, in which the bloc does not intervene.

Referring to the death of seven humanitarian workers from the non-governmental organization World Central Kitchen (WCK) in an Israeli airstrike, Borrell said that the fact that it was “the first time that Israel has admitted that they have killed by mistake has astonished many people all over the world.

“But I wonder how many mistakes were made before, in the murder of 140 United Nations humanitarian workers who were shot,” he said.

Borrell noted that “the United States has put more pressure on Israel and this causes Israel to partially reopen some steps in order to provide more support.”

“And the humanitarian support to the population of Gaza that is dying of hunger is a small step that shows that it is possible to increase the flow of humanitarian support and that it is moving in the right direction, better late than never, better late than never,” he said.

He added, in this sense, that “we must continue working on these four elements of the recipe: freeing the hostages, a ceasefire, more humanitarian support and the search for a political solution.”