EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday he has started the process of asking member states if they want to impose sanctions on "some Israeli ministers.”
"I initiated the procedure to ask the member states if they consider (it) appropriate to include in our list of sanctions some Israeli ministers (who) have been launching unacceptable hate messages against the Palestinians, and proposing things that clearly go against international law," he told reporters ahead of a meeting with EU foreign affairs ministers in Brussels.
Borrell did not name the ministers, but earlier this month he criticized Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich over remarks suggesting that the starvation of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians “might be just and moral” until hostages captured in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel are returned home.
Borrell said there should be “no taboos” to prevent the EU from ensuring that international humanitarian law is respected.
But the 27 EU member countries are divided over their approach to the war in Gaza and it’s unlikely that they would all agree on such a move.
