(CN) — After months of silence and faced with horrific scenes of Palestinian suffering, starvation and death, some European leaders are beginning to condemn Israel’s brutal assault on the Gaza Strip, with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez going so far as calling Israel a “genocidal state.”
On Monday, the United Kingdom, France and Canada issued a rare joint statement threatening to take “concrete actions” over Israel’s invasion of Gaza and its 11-week blockade of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave.
“The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable,” officials wrote in the statement. “We call on the Israeli government to stop its military operations in Gaza and immediately allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.”
They warned Israel was at risk of breaching international law by denying “essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population” and threatening to force Palestinians to flee Gaza. They added they were “committed to recognizing a Palestinian state.”
On Sunday night, in response to growing international outrage, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would allow some aid into Gaza to prevent a “starvation crisis.”
On Monday, five aid trucks were permitted into Gaza and 100 more on Tuesday. Tom Fletcher, the United Nations humanitarian chief, is warning 14,000 babies may die in the next two days unless aid is allowed into the strip.
The trickle of relief trucks comes as Israel carries out a massive bombing campaign of Gaza that has killed hundreds of Palestinians in recent days. Earlier this month, Netanyahu vowed to seize all of Gaza through a ground invasion and push the civilian population to the south. Israel’s invasion of Gaza follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration in early February that the United States would “take over” Gaza, relocate its Palestinian population and turn the enclave into a “riviera of the Middle East.”
Among European leaders, Sánchez, the leader of Spain’s center-left Socialists, has become the most outspoken critic of Israel. Last summer, Spain joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. A year ago, Spain — along with Ireland and Norway — also became an outlier in Western Europe by recognizing the state of Palestine.
Last Friday, Sánchez referred to Israel as a “genocidal state” during a debate in parliament. In answering a question from Gabriel Rufián, a parliamentarian from a left-wing Catalan party, about why Spain continues to trade with Israel, Sánchez replied that trade with the “genocidal state” had been stopped. In doing so, he became the first head of a European Union state to seemingly accuse Israel of genocide.
Then on Monday, Sánchez decried a “double standard” over Israel’s inclusion in the wildly popular Eurovision Song Contest and Russia’s ban from the competition. Israeli singer Yuval Raphael, a survivor of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, came in second in this year’s contest, which ended Saturday.
On Tuesday, the Congress of Deputies, Spain’s parliament, moved to implement an arms embargo on Israel. Spain has already restricted arms shipments to Israel.
In London, meanwhile, the U.K. said it was suspending free trade talks with Israel and hit three West Bank Israeli settlers and two settler groups with sanctions.
“The world is judging,” Foreign Secretary David Lammy said, addressing parliament on Tuesday. “History will judge them. Blocking aid. Expanding the war. Dismissing the concerns of your friends and partners. This is indefensible. And it must stop.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also spoke out against Israel on Tuesday.
“We must coordinate our response, because this war has gone on for far too long,” Starmer said. “We cannot allow the people of Gaza to starve.”
Ben Gidley, an expert on antisemitism and Israel at Birkbeck, University of London, said a shift in attitude toward Israel began taking place in Europe among political leaders and the Jewish community after Netanyahu broke off a ceasefire brokered in January and ordered a massive assault on Gaza.
“It is clear that the U.S. and European leaders have given the Israeli government a lot of latitude to act with a fair degree of impunity and that their statements so far have been very low key in calling for restraint,” he said, speaking by telephone.
Until recently, the consensus among Western leaders was that Israel should not be condemned because it had the “right to defend itself” against attacks by Hamas and other militant groups, even though Israel’s response went well “beyond the defensive a very long time ago,” Gidley said.
“So, it is significant that finally some European leaders who have been more reluctant to speak out are now deviating from that consensus,” he said.
There’s also growing unease and anger over Israel’s actions among some Jewish leaders in Europe “who’d been very defensive of Israel” until recently, he added.
“We know in our hearts we cannot turn a blind eye or remain silent at this renewed loss of life and livelihoods, with hopes dwindling for a peaceful reconciliation and the return of the hostages,” a group of Jewish leaders in Britain recently wrote in a letter to the Financial Times.
In Germany, the Central Council of Jews has urged Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Rabbis have also spoken out against the renewed assault on Gaza.
Gidley said condemnation also is hardening because of Netanyahu’s unwillingness to enter negotiations over Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
“There’s been a shift again in recent weeks as it becomes clearer that the freeing of hostages is very low in the priorities of the Israeli government, which was the kind of justification for war,” he said.
He added that recent statements from Israeli ministers showing “genocidal intent” are toughening attitudes toward Israel too.
For instance, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently said: “We are conquering, cleansing, and remaining in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed,” and “We are disassembling Gaza, and leaving it as piles of rubble, with total destruction with no precedent globally. And the world isn’t stopping us.”
In their Monday statement, Britain, France and Canada denounced such statements.
“We condemn the abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli government, threatening that, in their despair at the destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate,” they said. “Permanent forced displacement is a breach of international humanitarian law.”
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.