• ‘Shame’ Israel still denying media access to Gaza, says watchdog
• Palestinians face new dilemma as IDF troops advance, drop leaflets
STRASBOURG: EU lawmakers on Thursday called to sanction two “extremist” Israeli ministers and curb trade ties over the war in Gaza, backing up a push from European Commission boss Ursula von der Leyen.
The EU chief said on Wednesday in her keynote annual address to the European Parliament that she would propose those steps — putting the ball in the court of the bloc’s member states.
But it will be very difficult to get the measures through given deep divisions between the European Union’s 27 countries over Israel’s war in Gaza.
The European Parliament said it had voted a non-binding resolution that “endorses the Commission president’s decision to suspend EU bilateral support to Israel, and to partially suspend the EU-Israel agreement as regards trade”.
Shame’ Israel still denying media access
to Gaza, says watchdog
It said it also “calls for sanctions” on Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
The EU has faced increasing criticism for failing to act more strongly over the situation in Gaza.
‘Stop killing journalists’
The Foreign Press Association condemned Israel on Thursday for continuing to deny independent access to foreign journalists nearly two years into the war in Gaza.
“Israel must stop killing journalists in Gaza and give the foreign press free and independent access to the territory,” said the association, which has more than 350 members working for foreign media outlets in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
“This continued and institutionalised delay in the process is a mark of shame on Israel and its allies, who have too often chosen not to speak up in defence of basic press freedoms,” the board of the association said in a statement.
The association pointed out that Israel’s supreme court had repeatedly postponed hearings on its petition demanding access to Gaza. The association “notes with dismay that it has been a full year since it submitted its second petition to the Israeli Supreme Court for free and independent access to Gaza”, the statement said.
“Despite the urgency, the court has repeatedly agreed to the government’s request for delays and postponed one hearing after another.”
The association also slammed Israel for targeting Palestinian journalists operating inside Gaza. “Palestinian journalists have been directly targeted. Places where they habitually gathered have been bombed,” it said, adding that at least 200 of them have been killed by Israeli fire.
“Despite all of these dangers, they continue to inform the world while facing not only violence, but also hunger and repeated displacement.”
Last month, Israeli strikes on a hospital in Gaza killed more than 20 people, including five journalists, according to local authorities.
The FPA also criticised Israeli leaders and the military for going to “extreme lengths to discredit the work of our Palestinian colleagues, and to a great extent, the work of the foreign press as a whole”.
New dilemma for Palestinians
Palestinians in the relatively unscathed Al-Naser area of Gaza City were having to decide whether to stay or go on Thursday after the Israeli military dropped leaflets warning that troops would take control of the western neighbourhood.
Israel has ordered the hundreds of thousands of people living in Gaza City to leave as it intensifies its all-out war on the Palestinian group Hamas, but with little safety, space and food in the rest of Gaza, people face dire choices.
“It has been almost two years, with no rest, no settling down, not even sleep,” said Ahmed Al-Dayeh, a father, as he and his family prepared to flee the city in a truck pulled by a motorcycle, laden with some of their belongings.
“Our life revolves around war,” he said. “We have to go from this area to that area. We can’t take it anymore, we are tired.”
Israeli strikes killed 34 people across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to medics and local health authorities, including 22 in Gaza City and 12 in the central and southern parts of the territory.
Seven of those killed were searching for food when they were hit, the Palestinian officials said.
Israeli ground troops had operated in parts of Al-Naser at the start of the war in October 2023, and the leaflets dropped late on Wednesday left residents fearful that tanks would soon advance to occupy the entire neighbourhood. On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it struck 360 targets in Gaza.
