Echoing United Nations claims, the European Union accused Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza, a review leaked on Monday shows.
The eight-page document dated June 20, which Israel has dismissed as factually incorrect and morally flawed, holds that “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” in the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
Dissolution of the Association Agreement, which regulates trade and cooperation between the bloc and the Jewish state, could cost Israel more than $1 billion a year that it now receives in trade concessions, according to the EU Observer site, which first published the review document.
Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares told reporters on Monday that he would ask the European Union Council to approve an immediate suspension of the Association Agreement.
Spain, under its Socialist government, is one of the most hostile E.U. member states to Israel. It has accused Israel of genocide and imposed a blanket arms embargo, and its prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, last month called Israel a “genocidal country.”
The leaked E.U. paper is not binding. Israel has allies in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria, among others, in the E.U., which would need a consensus to alter the Association Agreement.
The leaked review is described as a “note” meant to “contribute to the ongoing review” of E.U.-Israel relations.
The text acknowledged the existence of violence by the Hamas terrorist group, but said this lay outside the scope of the document.
The Hague Initiative for International Cooperation (THINC), a nonprofit based near the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands, blasted the document as “deeply flawed.”
THINC Director Andrew Tucker told JNS: “The report was built on a defective factual assessment. It relies heavily on U.N. sources and Human Rights Watch, both of which have faced criticism for well-documented institutional biases and a conspicuous anti-Israel stance.”
By “ignoring alternative perspectives and omitting the role of Hamas in diverting and stealing humanitarian aid in Gaza, as well as other non-state actors like Iran—mainly through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—and its lavish funding by Qatar, the report presents a skewed and incomplete picture,” he said.
Effective human rights advocacy, Tucker said, “demands balance—not selective narratives. Adopting E.U. policy based on such a report risks compromising its impartiality and credibility.”
The report follows Brussels’ decision to look into Israel’s trade pact obligation last month, a review initiated by the Netherlands and led by E.U. foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, after a majority of member states called for a formal investigation.
Israel’s food blockade meant “half a million people (one in five)” in Gaza were “facing starvation,” the Kallas report said. “The blockade and siege of Gaza by Israel amounts to collective punishment … and may also amount to the use of starvation as a method of war,” it added.
An estimated 6,000 Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering some 1,200 people and abducting another 251. Israel launched a military campaign to dismantle Hamas and recover the hostages, which triggered an escalation and military confrontation between Israel and other Iranian proxies and later Iran.
The U.S. on June 22 attacked Iranian nuclear sites in coordination with Israel, as Iran continued to fire hundreds of rockets on Israeli population centers, killing 26 people in the first 10 days of the Iran-Israel war, according to Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies.
Israel was “in violation of an ICJ [International Court of Justice] provisional ruling” meant to “prevent the commission of acts within the scope of the genocide convention,” the E.U. review document read, in the only time it mentioned the word “genocide.”
It spoke of “indiscriminate [Israeli] attacks” using “heavy weapons, including air-dropped bombs, on places where civilians are sheltering.”
An Israeli Foreign Ministry response dated June 18 and shared with Euractiv said of the document: “In the midst of this grim reality [of war with Iran], the European Union is considering a ‘review’ of its relationship with Israel. This is not a policy adjustment—it is a moral distortion.”