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The EU has struck a deal with Israel for a “substantial increase” in aid deliveries to Gaza, Brussels said on Thursday, following weeks of diplomatic pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to unblock shipments to the enclave.
Brussels has demanded Israel end what it has described as “abhorrent” attacks on civilians in Gaza and ease restrictions on aid flows that EU officials have said could breach international law.
The EU also recently warned it could suspend its trade agreement with Israel over potential breaches of its human rights obligations enshrined in the pact.
The agreement comes after more than 21 months of war reduced much of the Palestinian enclave to rubble, with its more than 2mn people facing starvation conditions resulting from an ongoing Israeli blockade, international humanitarian groups have warned.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat, said on Thursday that following “constructive dialogue between the EU and Israel, significant steps have been agreed by Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip”.
Measures are set to include “the substantial increase of daily trucks for food and non-food items to enter Gaza, the opening of several other crossing points in both the northern and southern areas [and] the reopening of the Jordanian and Egyptian aid routes”, Kallas said in a statement.
The new measures were being co-ordinated with the UN, an EU official told the Financial Times, not the controversial US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that has begun a new aid distribution scheme this year in the shattered enclave.
Kallas said there was a “common understanding that aid at scale must be delivered directly to the population and that measures will continue to be taken to ensure that there is no aid diversion to Hamas”.
The agreement was struck through dialogue between Kallas, and Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar, a European Commission spokesperson said.
It also includes the resumption of fuel deliveries for humanitarian facilities and “the repair and facilitation of works on vital infrastructure” such as water desalination facilities, the commission added.
Sa’ar said the decision was approved by Netanyahu’s government at the weekend.
“Following our dialogue with the EU, our security cabinet made further decisions last Sunday to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza. And they include more trucks, more crossings and more routes for the humanitarian efforts,” he said at a press conference on Thursday alongside his German and Austrian counterparts.
In early March, Israel launched a 10-week siege of Gaza, which it said was a bid to force Hamas to surrender and release the 50 remaining Israeli hostages it holds, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.
Facing pressure from allies, Israel subsequently relented and in May began allowing some humanitarian aid in through the UN and other international aid groups.
But the major focus of Israeli and US efforts was the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation scheme, which from its launch has faced allegations that it would “weaponise” aid supplies in the service of Israel’s war goals.
More than 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in recent weeks on access routes to GHF distribution hubs, according to the UN.
At the same time, far-right members of Netanyahu’s government, including finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have in recent days slammed the premier for negotiating with Hamas over a new ceasefire deal aiming to halt the fighting for 60 days and secure the release of some Israeli hostages.
Both ministers have demanded that all humanitarian aid to the shattered enclave be halted, and that the military offensive continue indefinitely until Hamas’s destruction.
Indirect talks mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt are taking place in Doha. Sa’ar on Thursday said a deal was “achievable”.
“According to the framework [of the proposed agreement], if a temporary ceasefire is achieved we will negotiate on a permanent ceasefire,” he added.
